It's Letting Go
by Liquid
Summary: After tracking a strange radio signal leads her into a trap, Mojave Express Courier Tonya Greene becomes a pawn in a madman's scheme to claim the pre-war riches of the Sierra Madre Casino. But with hostile allies, a poisonous environment, and a bomb around her neck, does she have a chance to survive?
1. Chapter 1 A Strange Signal

_Has your life taken a turn? Do troubles beset you? Has fortune left you behind? If so, the Sierra Madre Casino, in all its glory, is inviting you to begin again. Come to a place where wealth, excitement, and intrigue await around every corner; stroll along the winding streets of our beautiful resort, make new friends, or rekindle old flames. Let your eyes take in the glorious expanse of the open desert under, clear, star-lit skies, and gaze straight into the sunset from our villa rooftops._

 _Countless diversions await: Gamble in our casino, take in the theater, or stay in one of our exclusive executive suits that will shelter you and cater to your every whim. So if life's worries have weighed you down, if you need an escape from your troubles, or if you just need an opportunity to begin again, join us, let go, and leave the world behind at the Sierra Madre Grand Opening this October… we'll be waiting._

 **It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter One: A Strange Signal**

The distant, static laced transmission was on a loop, endlessly repeating that same lengthy message over and over again, but also just a little more clearly each time that Tonya Greene tuned in. The station that the words were broadcasting on was at the lower end of the radio band, so much that it could easily be missed if the person listening in didn't know what to look for, but thankfully she had been getting better at finding it, having been tracking the source for several days.

Tonya was a Courier for the _Mojave Express_ , and therefore used to trekking long distances across hostile terrain, but for the time being she had decided to take a break from delivering packages. During her last delivery, a rather exhausting trip that had taken her into Arizona where an unpleasant group called Caesar's Legion was in control, the Courier had been exposed to a level of oppression and cruelty that she had never seen before.

Everywhere she went, there were men and women affixed to large wooden crosses for crimes from theft to murder, and simply left there to die in the heat for days on end. There were also slaves of all ages, bound like cattle, and forced to do manual labor to the extent that many of them died… and _women_ had no rights at all. In the Legion, the best a woman could hope for was to be the wife of someone important, but even then, her only value came from how many children she could produce.

For some reason, though, couriers were allowed to come and go as they pleased, but this hadn't stopped every single Legionary that Tonya passed by from whistling at her or loudly commenting to each other about exactly what they wanted to do to her. Luckily for her, the law about couriers kept them at bay… that is, until she had reached the destination of her package. The contents had been for the ruler of that part of Arizona, a tall, imposing man called _Aurelius of Phoenix_ … who apparently had a thing for slender, green-eyed brunettes.

Although he had not been directly hostile with her, through subtle hints, and a show of who was in charge by having a slave beaten to death in front of her for a minor infraction, it was obvious to the Courier that she would never have been able to simply walk out of there unless this man allowed it. Having been born in _New Reno_ , and familiar with how many good looking girls were pressured into making _adult holovids_ , she knew what he wanted.

Given the alternative of either being crucified or beaten to death like that slave, Tonya had chosen to spend the night with him… a degrading, painful night where he had become even _more_ of a chauvinist asshole, and also nearly choked her to death. Fortunately for the Courier, he had also passed out immediately after, and Aurelius of Phoenix was such a heavy sleeper that she had been able to slip out of his tent unnoticed.

The entire trip back to Nevada, she had bene on edge, as if expecting the Legion to come chasing after her at any moment, but apparently Aurelius was even more chauvinistic than she thought, and had apparently forgotten about her already. Of course, this experience wasn't quite so easy for _Tonya_ to forget, prompting her to take a short vacation from the Mojave Express, _after_ getting paid for the job, of course. So the climbed onto her restored pre-war _Lone Wanderer_ motorcycle, and that was when she first heard the broadcast.

Mostly static at first, the Courier had been just about to change the station on her motorcycle's radio, when she thought she heard a word spoken in the noise. It was probably because she was camped up on top of a hill that the signal came in as good as it did, and the following day after stopping at the top of another large hill, the signal was clearer. Traveling constantly east from the start point, every day the woman talking on the looped broadcast could be just a little better understood, until finally the whole message was received.

Repeating over and over again, the message was too good to be true, Tonya thought the first time after hearing it. There were no pre-war paradises left in the world, except for those lucky enough to be born inside of one of those old _Vaults_ … at least, the ones that _hadn't_ gone horribly wrong in the early days of the war. However, since the Courier was using this vacation to get back to her prospecting roots, she decided that the source of the signal would be fun to track down… although one of those _Pip-Boy_ things would have been nice to have, since the fantasy had been brought up.

Tonya was no fool, immediately suspecting that the broadcast could have been an ambush point for raiders or worse, but on the other hand, this time she wouldn't be surrounded by fifty armed Legionaries, while her own weapons had been taken away. One on one, she was capable of holding her own in a fist fight, and for everything else there was the 9mm pistol that was holstered on her hip. For anything too big for the pistol, such as the green-skinned _Super Mutants_ or reptilian _Deathclaws_ … she had no business messing with them, and was pretty good at sneaking away if needed.

Still, there were some people who purposely hunted such creatures, but those people were idiots, and deserved to have their bodies scattered across the rocky ground… which was what usually happened to them. It was said that the _New California Republic_ paid bounties to anyone lucky enough to kill a Deathclaw without dying themselves, but as far as she was concerned, the NCR could keep their money.

Another day of traveling, and the strange signal was as strong and clear as if she were standing right on top of it, but looking down at all sides of the hill she was currently standing on, there was nothing around but open desert. Traveling past that point, but finding that the signal started to get weaker again, Tonya went back, and did a more thorough search. She had expected to find a radio tower, or a populated encampment, but there was just… wait a second… what was that?

Down at the bottom of the eastern side of the hill, the terrain changed over a small area, becoming smoother and even, as if placed there instead of being natural. There was also something in the center of the patch… something gray that could be just barely seen against the ground from where she was standing, so the Courier left the motorcycle where it was, and started down to investigate. At first she thought that it was a rock, and this left her feeling disappointed, but then Tonya realized that it was a _hatch_.

Was the signal coming from an underground bunker? This would certainly explain why it was so hard to find, but then how was it broadcasting? She couldn't see any antennas sticking out of the ground nearby, and there weren't any footprints around the hatch either, so… was this one of those pre-war shelters where a whole family of skeletons was going to be found inside? Tonya hated finding really old skeletons, especially the child-sized ones, and that was why she tried not to go wandering around any old Vaults unless she _really_ had to.

Oh well, she hadn't come all this way just to turn around and go home, so after doing a careful check around the hatch for booby-traps, the Courier pulled the release lever, and opened it. Well, it couldn't have been undisturbed since before the bombs fell, since there was no dust cloud or rush of pressurized air that had been trapped for two hundred years, but there _was_ a sound that could now be heard. It was faint, and muffled, but there was no mistake that it was the same broadcast that she had been hearing this whole time.

However, instead of coming from her motorcycle's radio, it was coming from down within the hatch. Listening intently for any other sounds that could indicate danger, Tonya was left with no choice but to climb down into the bunker… surprised to find that she could see what was around her at the bottom of the metal ladder. There was a light on, hanging from the ceiling at the center of the room, meaning that there was still power to the bunker… and Tonya could now hear the radio broadcast more clearly.

Moving down the only corridor, the Courier spotted a small side room, and from the mattress on the floor along with empty food wrappers, it was clear that someone had been living there fairly recently. No sign of anyone now, though, but she still kept her hand on the holstered pistol as she moved back into the corridor. Up ahead there was another room, but it appeared that this was the end of the bunker, since there were no other visible doors, just a bunch of cots around the room as if this had once been a sleeping area.

The last visible feature of the room was a small end table that was positioned on the center, and on top of that end table was a radio with its indicator lights on. That same broadcast was being originated from that point somehow, but this mystery was forgotten immediately after the Courier stepped into the room. _Clang!_ The door behind her slammed shut, and Tonya was reflexively turning toward it, when a sudden _hiss_ of released air reached her ears. No, it wasn't air… it was _gas_!

Brownish-yellow, foul smelling gas was being pumped into the room through every vent, and even the attempted quick inhalation to hold her breath left the Courier feeling light-headed. There was no way to hold her breath, and she didn't have a gas mask, meaning that Tonya's vision blurred the next time she tried to breathe. Tripping over one of the beds, and collapsing to the floor, she made a last effort to reach the door's manual release, but could no longer muster the strength to lift her arm.

It now felt like she was floating, unable to see, and hearing sounds that were like she was underwater until there was nothing but the darkness… slipping away into the darkness…


	2. Chapter 2 Under a Red Cloud

_You've heard of the Sierra Madre Casino… we all have; the legend, the curses… some foolishness about it lying in the middle of the City of the Dead, buried beneath a blood-red cloud. A bright, shining monument, luring treasure hunters to their doom._

 _The world's most famous stars and entertainers were invited to its Grand Opening; an invitation was a sign of… exclusiveness. The opening was supposed to symbolize a road to a brighter future, not just for the world… but for any who came to its doors… a chance for anyone to begin again._

 _Except, the Sierra Madre never opened… the war froze it in time, like a big flashbulb going off. The Grand Opening… one big ending of humanity. It's still out there, in the wastes… preserved, just waiting for someone to crack it open… but getting to it, that's not the hard part…_

 **It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Two: Under a Red Cloud**

Eventually the floating feeling went away, replaced by that of hard stone on her back as Tonya slowly regained consciousness. The air tasted bad, like rust and sulfur, yet somehow breathable while her eyes came into focus, and the soft wind was hot, but somehow more humid than the rest of the Mojave. Struggling to roll over onto her stomach in order to get up, the Courier saw that the ground was cobblestone, with an old world feel as she looked at her surroundings.

Three story buildings, made of faded white stone, surrounded the large kind of courtyard where she was lying, and small antennas stuck out from on top of the tile rooftops, making it all seem black against the oddly red sky. A bright circle that she assumed was the sun could be seen high up like it was late morning, but the clouds were so heavy and red, like a fog, that it was impossible to get her bearings. With her head still throbbing from the aftereffects of the gas, she got up to her knees, leaning against a stone fountain where the flickering blue hologram of an _incredibly_ beautiful woman in an expensive dress stood silently at the center point.

" _Starting to think you'd never wake up_." A loud, echoing voice said, startling her. " _Sorry about your possessions; the Madre won't allow in anything from the outside that might be contaminated… even clothes, I'm afraid_."

At the center of the fountain, the woman was gone, replaced with the stern and angry looking face of an older man with a white beard. At first the words that he was saying were confusing to her as well, until the Courier looked down at herself and saw that not only were her weapons and equipment gone… but so was everything else except her underwear. In a reflexive rush to cover herself with her arms, Tonya's hand brushed over something on her neck, and after feeling it again, she started to panic because it was just like the collars that the Legion slaves wore.

" _Hmm, I didn't expect you to know what that was_." The hologram continued as her breathing became rapid. " _But you get the point, don't you? From now on, when I speak, you listen… when I give an order, you obey it as quickly as humanly possible, understand? You play clever, play stupid, or try to tell me no, and that collar will go off… and your head with it_."

Tonya was starting to realize that the thing on her neck was not a Legion slave collar, but its true purpose didn't exactly help to slow her rapidly beating heart, either. Where was she? How had she gotten there? What was this person planning to do with her, especially if it required an explosive being strapped to her neck? Without giving her time to ask any of these questions, the man on the hologram directed her to look behind him, and there she saw what he called the _Sierra Madre_.

Sitting beyond some of the biggest, and sturdiest looking gates that the Courier had ever seen, was a building that was far taller than any of the others that she could see. It was more like a tower, reaching up into the red cloud above, but the building was dark, unlike the flickering lights that she could see from some of the surrounding buildings. Suddenly there was a crack of thunder as lightning streaked across the sky, making her jump, and the hologram man seemed to be amused by this.

" _What's wrong, little girl? Afraid of the thunder_?" He chuckled heartlessly. " _Well, a little storm is the least of your worries here, and the only way out for you is when I release you… or if you disobey me, in which case I'll kill you and find somebody else_."

Basically, she had no choice to obey this person, but that didn't explain why Tonya had been brought there, and he just chuckled again when she asked what he wanted, in a voice that came out a lot less confident than she had hoped. Unfortunately, this man was unwilling to give her the whole story, not yet, not until she and the others were standing together at the fountain, and only then would they learn of his grand scheme. According to him, there was too much risk in revealing everything at once, even _with_ the collars.

" _What you are to accomplish cannot be done alone_." The hologram man continued. " _There are three others that I need you to collect from around the resort, and I suggest that you begin by heading for the Police Station. Just follow the road signs, and uh… you might want to find yourself some clothes first… there are many dangers, but even the air can be harmful to a body like yours_."

With that, the hologram man was gone, replaced by the original hologram of the beautiful woman standing silently on the center of the fountain, and even though she was alone, the Courier kept her arms folded over her chest while looking around for something that she could wear. A pair of boots would have been nice, since the hot cobblestone was burning her feet, and she hadn't liked the way that the hologram man had said that there were _many dangers_ around.

Not daring to stray from the courtyard, at least for now, Tonya skirted the buildings while trying every door, but mostly finding the interiors of each place empty. It was strange, though, looking more like they had been picked clean instead of having been damaged by the bombs… in fact… this place didn't look like it had been bombed out at all… more like… just eroding with age. Another crack of thunder, followed by more of that hot wind, making the Courier wipe the sweat from her forehead while trying yet another door marked _Maintenance_.

For once luck was on her side, she thought upon seeing that this small room actually had something inside, but then she took a step inside, and Tonya's heart nearly stopped when she felt her ankle come into contact with a wire that was stretched across the doorway. First looking down and seeing that the wire was almost to its limit, her eyes followed it over to the doorframe, where it connected to some small black blocks fixed to the wall, each one marked _C4_.

Not exactly an expert on explosives, the Courier very carefully moved her leg back, sighed heavily with relief, and then took a closer look at the floor of the room. There was another tripwire a few feet in, followed by another, and then another, all positioned at different angles, and each with their own supply of C4 connected. In most cases she would have just left the room alone, since someone clearly didn't want anyone going in… but at the same time she couldn't just walk around this place in her underwear.

With no other visible option, she took a deep breath, and then very carefully stepped over the first tripwire, and then the second, and the third, each time feeling like a child trying to walk for the first time. Her breathing was rapid again, and more sweat was dripping from her face, more from tension than fear, she guessed, but one by one Tonya made her way across the room to where some storage lockers were positioned against the far wall.

Expecting to find maybe one or two random things inside the lockers, the Courier was surprised to find that there was at least something placed inside of each one, as if this had been used as somebody's secret hoard, instead of being left over from the war. What did that mean, though? Had there been others brought here before her? Had one of them been gathering supplies in this old maintenance closet? And if so, then what had happened to them?

It was like whoever had put this all together had been just grabbing everything that they could find, which thankfully included clothes, but it was still slim pickings. Eventually Tonya found a white maintenance jumpsuit that sort of fit her, thanks to the elastics, and she tied her hair around itself in a sort of _Wendy the Wielder_ style, which was the best that she could manage at the time… not that she planned on entering any beauty contests any time soon.

"Okay, so there's clothes and food in here." She said to herself after opening every locker. "Shit, no weapons."

Not that she had expected to find a hidden armory or anything, but there were no blades, or any blunt objects or tools to be found, either. As nice as it was to have her body and feet covered, once a pair of old worn out boots were discovered, the Courier coughed after taking a deep breath of the air. That smell of sulfur and rust was making her feel nauseous, even more so if she breathed through her mouth, but once again there were no masks or filters anywhere in sight.

Once again carefully stepping over the tripwires, and going back outside, Tonya noticed that the gate toward the Sierra Madre was not the only one in the courtyard. A second gate, only about half as impressive, sat on the opposite side, facing toward nothing but more open desert. For a brief moment she was tempted to try and leave this whole mess behind, whatever the hologram man had in store… but after feeling the collar around her neck when she tried to swallow, something told her that simply escaping was not an option.

"Police Station." She said to herself, glancing at the nearby street signs. "He wants me to go to the Police Station first."

With no other option than to play along, at least for now, Tonya continued to circle the courtyard until finding the right directory sign, and then following it down one of the resort's narrow streets.


	3. Chapter 3 Green Eyed Monster

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Three: Green Eyed Monster**

In almost every place that Tonya had even been, there was some kind of activity; people going about their lives, mutated animals or insects foraging for food, old robots going about their programmed tasks… but in this place there was nothing. Aside from the soft wind, the random crackling of thunder in the sky, and her own footsteps, the resort was absolutely still, making the Courier feel a sense of anxiety that she had never experienced.

There was graffiti drawn or scratched randomly into the walls, most of it making no sense, and some being downright creepy, but at least it was evidence that at some point _someone_ else had been there. _Leave=Death Stay=Death_ was carved into what might have once been the scorched trunk of a dead tree, _Where is your God now?_ Was sprayed onto the partially broken wall of an old bathroom with the letters G, O, and D inverted, and _If anyone finds this I'm so sorry you're here_ written on a fallen door actually made her feel a chill.

Following the signs toward the Police Station, Tonya was making her way up a set of stone stairs, when she stopped as a sound reached her ears. It was like a kind of shuffling, scraping sound, getting closer but also erratic, and… a kind of gurgling noise like someone trying to speak with a mouthful of water? Crouching down near the top of the stairs, she slowly peeked over to see what it was that was making the noise, but couldn't see anything from where she was.

All of the sounds were coming from around the corner up ahead, maybe from behind one of the support pillars of the empty buildings, so staying crouched down, the Courier moved from the stairs, not making a sound while tip-toing across the cobblestone, and pressing up against one of the pillars in order to keep herself out of sight. The noise was most likely coming from a person, and while she wanted to hope that it was one of the people that she was supposed to gather for the hologram man, Tonya's travels around the Mojave had taught her better.

Suddenly the sound stopped just as she was trying to stealthily peek around the pillar, and the Courier sighed with a mixture of frustration and relief when she discovered that there was nothing there. Turning back around to make sure that she was following the signs properly, Tonya gasped, jumping a little when she saw that there was someone standing at the top of the stairs, facing her… someone that instantly made her feel uncomfortable.

"Uh… hi." She said nervously, trying to appear confident. "It's good to see another person here, uh… you aren't by any chance, waiting for me to find you?"

This person was wearing what looked like an old hazmat suit, darkly colored or maybe faded over time, with a hood, and they gurgled again through a gas mask that… had green light coming from the goggles over the person's eyes. Maybe it was some kind of pre-war night vision or something, but the sounds that this person was making, along with being unresponsive to her words, made the anxiety she was feeling even worse. For several seconds this figure remained where it was, but then it started forward with long, deliberate steps.

"Hey, wait a second." Tonya continued, backing away as it walked right toward her. "I don't want any trouble, so just keep your distance, okay?"

Again not responding to her words, the figure just kept marching forward, suddenly taking a long knife out of its sheath, and stabbing at her as soon as it was close enough. There was a ripping sound when the tip of the blade cut into her jumpsuit, but she had managed to move back quickly enough to keep it from hitting her skin. The figure kept at it, slicing upwards at her face, but Tonya leaned backwards to avoid it, while giving the figure a hard kick to its stomach.

Gurgling again through the mask as it stumbled backwards, the figure recovered almost immediately, this time lunging forward with a quick slash that made the Courier cry out when it sent a stinging pain surging through her arm. The cut wasn't very deep, but it was painful as hell, and by this point she knew that her only option was to kill this person before it attacked again. Now with her lunging forward before the figure could pull the blade back, Tonya grabbed its inner elbow with one hand, pulling it down while shoving the hand that held the knife, effectively using its own strength to send the blade stabbing into its own throat.

The figure gurgled again as the Courier kept pushing on the knife hand, forcing this person backwards into another pillar, where a strange yellowish-green fluid started to leak out from the wound. Ramming into the figure with all her strength again and again, digging the long blade deeper and deeper into its throat until its whole body simply collapsed. Falling to the ground as if it were a rag doll, and no longer moving, Tonya roughly pulled the blade from its throat, happy to now have a weapon to defend herself even though the yellow fluid smelled awful.

"God damn it." She said, looking around to see if anyone else was sneaking up on her. "Why can't they ever just be peaceful?"

It was probably not a good idea to stick around after killing this person, especially if it had any friends around, so the Courier resumed walking toward the police station, when she froze as that same gurgling sound came from behind. Slowly turning around, Tonya was not sure what she expected to see, but it was _definitely_ not the figure whose throat she had just cut… getting to its feet and starting toward her again.

Hazmat suits were bulky and must have provided it with enough protection to survive the knife, at least that was what Tonya thought while the figure marched toward her… but this time she wasn't going to be as easy of a target. Clearly this person was not interested in talking, and meant her harm, so it probably wasn't expecting her to run right at it with the knife ready. Ducking down under its arm when it reached out to grab her, the Courier moved around behind it, and slashed with the long knife, digging the blade across its lower back.

The figure stumbled forward, before turning around to grab her again, but this attempt was stopped when she gave it another slash, tearing through its hazmat suit and making it fall onto its hands and knees when the blade tore across its legs. Somehow undeterred by these attacks, the figure managed to grab a hold of her by the front of the jumpsuit, and then lunge forward with enough force to tackle her to the ground.

Its hands went for her throat, partially blocked by the explosive collar that she was wearing, and allowing her to plunge the long knife right into its ribs. The edge on this weapon must have really been something, because it slipped into the figure's body easily, pulling out again just as easily, and going back in. Several times the Courier stabbed this person in the ribs, before breaking its grip on her by forcing the blade right up into its armpit, allowing her to knock it over onto its back so that it was even more exposed.

Getting on top of the figure, and straddling its chest so that her knees were pinning its arms, more of that yellowish fluid leaked out as Tonya raised up the blade, bringing it down right into her enemy's heart. Twisting and wrenching the blade until the figure stopped moving, the Courier was now completely out of breath to the point where she had trouble getting back to her feet. The danger was over now, though, so breathed heavily while again starting toward the Police Station and…

"What the fuck?" She asked, her own thoughts interrupted by that same gurgling sound. "No… no, no, no, you've got to be kidding me."

Regardless of how many times she had mortally wounded the figure, its eyes were still glowing green as it pulled itself to its feet yet again… looking like it had never been injured in its life when it started walking toward her once again. First she had been startled by the figure, and then she had been angry at it, but now… but now the Courier was frightened. Her mouth ran dry, and it felt like a knot was forming in her stomach as she started to realize exactly what she was facing… so she ran.

Turning heel and running down the cobblestone street, Tonya went as fast as she could, which was not very fast at all since she was still out of breath from trying to fight off the figure. In all of her travels throughout the Mojave, she had seen a lot of crazy things, but never a person being able to just get up like nothing happened after being stabbed in the heart. The figure didn't run after her, but it was definitely walking more quickly now, following her when she turned down another side street, and keeping those glowing green eyes locked onto her.

Then she saw it: Up ahead there was a building set into the corner where the street ended, and on that building was the illuminated emblem of a badge, with the words _POLICE_ written underneath. More gurgling as the fast walking figure gained on her, Tonya fought to keep going even though she hadn't gotten a chance to catch her breath yet. Reaching the door a few seconds later, the Courier felt a surge of relief when she found that it was unlocked, so she shoved it open, and then slammed it shut in the figure's face.

Wait, no, the door wasn't closing, why wasn't the door closing no matter how hard she pushed? The answer was because the figure had shoved its arm into the doorway at the last second, and was now trying to force the door open. With her back against her side of the door, pushing with her legs to keep this person from getting in, she wildly slashed with the knife, cutting it across the arm three times before it was forced to pull back.

 _Slam! Click!_ Shutting and locking the heavy door, Tonya looked through the tiny window at the top, only to freeze in place when she came face to face with the figure's mask. It just stood there, gurgling while those awful green eyes stayed on her, but then in the most surprising move of all… it walked away. Very slowly turning away from the door's small window, the figure simply walked away until it vanished from sight around the next corner, and in the several minutes where the Courier didn't move from that spot… it didn't return.

Eventually she was able to sigh with relief, which came out almost sounding like she was going to cry while falling to her knees, finally getting the chance to catch her breath. Her chest heaving and heart pounding, Tonya shifted around so that she was sitting against the door, and only then did it dawn on her that she had reached the Police Station. Supposedly there was someone in there that she needed to find, but after meeting the green-eyed figure, she couldn't help but wonder what other dangers were waiting for her in this place.


	4. Chapter 4 A Caged Mutant

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Four: A Caged Mutant**

Only a couple of the lights that hung from the ceiling were working, giving the interior of the resort's small Police Station an eerie glow. An old wooden reception desk was in front of her, clearly having once belonged to a woman because of the old makeup and compact mirror that were found inside the top drawer when Tonya searched it, but she had no need for such products in this place. A small door was off to the side, with the words _Sierra Madre Sheriff_ , so the Courier decided to investigate this before exploring the larger door toward the back.

Locked… of all the rotten luck, she thought while letting out an annoyed _huff_. Like most of the doors that she had seen around the resort, this one was solid wood and too well built to be kicked open, but the lock itself looked pretty cheap. Suddenly an idea popped into her head, and Tonya went back to the receptionist's desk, opening the top drawer and searching through the contents until discovering a bobby pin toward the bottom. This, along with a small nail file off to the side were exactly what she needed for a stubborn door.

Now, it had been a while since the Courier had needed to pick a lock, but after kneeling down and putting the tools into the tumblers, it all came back to her. Unfortunately the bobby pin and file were destroyed in the process, but the lock clicked open, allowing her to enter the pretty well untouched office of the Sheriff. The computer terminal on the desk was nonfunctioning, and aside from a hat and a bunch of bottles of whiskey, the only useful item inside was an old .357 Revolver that was hanging on a leather belt.

"Finally, a gun." Tonya whispered, taking it out of the holster and opening the chamber. "Need more bullets, though."

The knife that she had gotten from that green eyed figure was good to have and all, but nothing was better than a good firearm at her side, even though there was no extra ammo to be found anywhere inside the office. Still, six bullets were better than none, the Courier would simply have to conserve them as much as possible. She took the belt as well as the revolver so that it would be easier to carry, and then Tonya left the Sheriff's office.

Slightly less weary about checking through the larger door in the back, since she was armed, the Courier carefully pushed it open, revealing a much larger room that was even more dimly lit. This must have been the main area of the station, since it was filed with partially destroyed filing cabinets along the walls, and a room with a flickering light off to the right that almost looked like a kitchen. The most dominant feature of the room, however, was the large holding cell in the very center… a holding cell with something _big_ inside.

"Someone… someone there?" A deep, slow voice asked. "Master? Master, Dog is hungry... Master?"

From where she was, the single functioning light near the cell only let the Courier see that the large figure within was sitting in the center, sort of muttering to himself about being hungry. This in itself didn't bother her, since the holding cell looked strong enough, but with all the figure's talk about a _Master_ , did that mean that there was someone else inside the Police Station? If there was, then they were doing a good job of staying hidden, and Tonya wasn't going to learn anything by hiding like that, so she took a deep breath before stepping out into view.

"Master?" The figure asked excitedly, standing up. "Wait, you're not Master… Dog remembers you, though… pretty lady from the bunker… so hungry."

Tonya had already known that this person was big, but it was only after he stood up that she realized just how _much_ so. More than seven feet tall, muscular, but standing kind of hunched over, it wasn't until she saw his green skin that the Courier realized she was dealing with a _Super Mutant._ From her travels across the Mojave, she knew just how brutish and powerful these artificially created monsters could be… but at least this one wasn't attacking her on sight.

"Master must have locked Dog in cage." The mutant continued, almost sounding unsure. "Dog is _so_ hungry… pretty lady get Dog something to eat? Uh, have to leave then… he's waiting for someone to let Dog out."

She wasn't exactly sure by what the mutant meant by saying this, but no matter how he was created, Tonya wasn't about to let any creature starve in a cage. Also, a search for food would provide cover for her to do a quick recon of the rest of the building without drawing attention. The kitchen was the most likely place to find food, so instead the Courier went around the cage, and into a smaller hallway where there was another row of cells, but not much else.

Inside the still locked cells the beds had been overturned, with mattresses shredded as if there had been some kind of a riot… not that it had done the prisoners any good, since there were skeletal remains of at least one person inside of each one. A bottle of water had been left just out of reach of a skeleton that had been stretching its arm through the bars, and this one was a lot _fresher_ than the others, suggesting that someone had locked them in on purpose. But who would do such a thing? Tonya wondered as she headed back into the main room.

"Hungry!" The mutant yelled, startling her as he rattled the bars. "Dog is hungry! Dog needs something to eat!"

The mutant started ramming himself into the bars, shaking the room and making some dust fall from the ceiling while his screaming continued. Not ashamed to admit that she was scared, the Courier ran into the kitchen, thankfully finding some old cans of _Cram_ potted meat inside one of the cupboards. Moving back over toward the cage and nervously rolling the cans in between the bars of the cell, the mutant stopped assaulting the bars almost immediately in order to go after them.

Picking them up, and not even bothering to open the cans, the mutant simply picked them up and tossed them into his mouth, appearing to swallow them whole one after another, until the mutant belched loudly. Taking a couple slow steps back over to the bars, he now leaned against them, becoming oddly silent and still to the point where Tonya actually became concerned for his safety. For several seconds he did not move or speak, and the Courier was leaning closer to ask if he was all right, when the mutant's arm suddenly shot out to grab her by the front of the jumpsuit.

"Finally, you are… you…" The mutant said, standing up straight. "You are… not who I was expecting."

Now standing to his full height, the mutant's speech had become faster and more confident sounding as if Tonya was now dealing with an intelligent being somehow. Pulling her off her feet and lifting her into the air, the Courier groaned after being pulled roughly against the bars, where the mutant studied the explosive collar around her neck for a few moments, before throwing her backwards hard enough to make her land on her ass a few feet away.

"So, too scared to face me himself, the old man sends another in his place." The mutant said, chuckling a bit. "Is that what you are? Are you Elijah's bitch, come to retrieve Dog? Or are you just another poor fool lured here by greed? Could be _either_ with that collar on."

It didn't take a genius to figure out that this _Elijah_ was the hologram man that she had seen earlier, and she assured the mutant that she wasn't working for him, while _definitely_ not being his bitch, as he had put it. In fact, all that Tonya wanted to do was find a way to get the collar off without losing her head, and leave this awful place, to which the mutant simply laughed.

"Oh yes, everyone brought here just wants their freedom… at first." He continued, shaking his head. "If you haven't yet, you too will feel the pull of the Sierra Madre, and then your desire to survive will be overtaken by greed. Greed for the riches locked inside; the same greed that holds the old man here, and the same greed that everyone before you felt."

The only thing that Tonya could do was assure him that she was different, and surprisingly enough, he agreed. The mutant clarified that she wasn't different, but the situation was, as far as the collars that both of them were wearing. Again the Courier wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then the mutant clarified again, this time to his own embarrassment, that Dog had become hungry after being locked up, and actually… managed to _eat_ his collar.

"I locked us in here when I felt the hunger." He explained, looking at the lock. "The hunger gives Dog a way to take control, and Dog does whatever the old man tells him… probably how _you_ got here… Dog finding you in one of the old man's traps, and bringing you here like a good little lackey… makes me sick."

"Look, I don't know why I was brought here, or what your _Elijah_ has planned." Tonya argued, finally taking a moment to get to her feet. "But I don't want to die, either, so… so, for now we really don't have a choice but to work together."

Chuckling again, the mutant commented that while he had no desire to go with anything the old man wanted, the Courier actually _did_ have a choice. All she had to do was wait for him to get hungry again, and then Dog would come out, ready and willing to do anything that the old man said. While this was sort of tempting as far as keeping her head, and things would definitely be easier with a willing servant… Tonya wasn't Elijah's friend, and she didn't want someone who would blindly follow him.

"I don't really understand how you have two voices." She said, cautiously stepping toward the cage. "But I'm also not working for Elijah, nor as I looking for some shortcut to a treasure, and I'll prove it… so how do I let you out?"

"Let me out? As I am?" The mutant scoffed. "I could easily turn on you; break your legs and then run away until the collar's signal is no longer a threat… can you risk it?"

This was a frightening thought, and he was more than capable of doing it, but again Tonya asked how to let him out, to which he responded by reaching behind his neck and taking a small key off of the chain around it. The Courier realized that without that key, she would have never been able to free the mutant, since Dog somehow hadn't been aware of it, or else he would have let himself out. So was this some kind of a test to see her character or something?

"Perhaps you are more than you appear… perhaps not." He said, reaching around the bars and unlocking the cell. "Either way, you might end up regretting this decision… shall we go?"


	5. Chapter 5 Relentless Pursuit

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Five: Relentless Pursuit**

Speaking with the mutant, who insisted that he wasn't Dog but wouldn't give another name, was very informative as the two of them left the Police Station. According to him, Elijah had made his way there from someplace called _The Big Empty_ , but hadn't been able to accomplish what he came to the Sierra Madre to do alone. Others had been lured there by the radio broadcast as well, but like he had explained before, greed had been the death of all of them.

Even beyond the ones who were caught in the old man's traps, once they caught wind of exactly what was happening in this place, and the potential for wealth that it brought, they became like animals. Some of the people tried to help the others by gathering supplies and trying to coordinate a team effort, only to be killed by the others who had more _base_ instincts. Those others had a habit of booby-trapping the supplies that had been gathered, only to be killed themselves after being cut off from the supplies that they desperately needed.

"That's awful." Tonya commented as they walked down the cobblestone street. "What could be so tempting that it could make so many people just… kill each other?"

"See, that's just it, no one _actually_ knows what the secret of this place is." The mutant replied, stopping for a second to check around the corner. "Elijah is obsessed with the place, making the Sierra Madre kind of like a collar of his own… some of his captives believed that he knows what lies hidden inside, but they didn't last long enough to find out."

So many other dangers existed within the resort, including plenty that the Courier hadn't encountered yet, but the worst of them all was apparently the green-eyed figure that Tonya had encountered on her way to the Police Station. No one knew where he came from, or what his goals were, but the mutant had seen him cut down men twice his size with relative ease, and the ones he didn't kill… eventually their screams couldn't be heard any longer as he dragged them off into the cloud.

Having experienced a close encounter with the green-eyed figure herself, the Courier was visibly frightened from haring just how dangerous that thing was, and found herself stepping a little closer to the mutant, suddenly more happy to have him around. Another crack of thunder split the sky, but the red glow from above was a little more intense, allowing her to see her surroundings in more detail, not that it made much difference.

"There are two others that the old man wanted me to find." Tonya said, changing the subject. "I don't suppose you have any idea where to find them?"

"Easiest way to find that would be to ask Elijah." The mutant answered. "But if you don't want to go all the way back to the fountain, I remember… I remember someone telling Dog to use an _Auto-Doc_ … but that makes no sense because this body doesn't fit inside."

The Courier had hoped for a little more detail when it came to this, but the mutant explained that he and Dog did not share thoughts, yet flashes of memory could get through, which was why hiding the cell key on himself had kept Dog caged. Oh well, as fascinating as a Super Mutant with a split personality was, every second that they delayed was another that Elijah might push the button, so they had to keep moving. The only place that the mutant could think of with Auto-Docs was the _Resort Clinic_ , and it wasn't far away, so that was where the two of them headed.

Just like with the Police Station, there were signs on the corner of every street telling them which way to go, and Tonya was just rounding a corner, when she gasped, stopping in her tracks. The mutant did the same, freezing in place when they both saw that up ahead the green-eyed figure was standing in the middle of the street. It was still as a statue, not appearing to even breathe while the glowing green eyes of its mask just stared at them… while both of its hands firmly gripped a spear.

"Maybe we should, um… find another route." The Courier suggested, her eyes franticly searching for an escape. "Over there… maybe we can go through that…

Suddenly her words were interrupted by an outcry of pain from the mutant, when the figure came to life, tossing its spear at them. The weapon, which looked like the center pole of a coatrack with a bunch of those knifes tied to the end, flew through the air before sinking into one of the mutant's arms. With a growl of pain and anger, the mutant ripped the spear out of itself before Tonya could even react, and tossed it back with all his strength.

Perfectly on target, there was a slicing sound when the spear buried all of its blades into the green-eyed figure's chest, followed by that awful gurgling sound as the figure was lifted off its feet. There was so much force behind the spear throw that the figure was impaled completely, flying backwards into one of the buildings' stone walls, where it appeared to be stuck. More of that yellowish fluid poured out from underneath the figure's hazard suit, and for a moment it seemed to die, going limp completely.

Unfortunately it gurgled again a few seconds later, looking back up at them and reaching out to grab the spear with both hands. It took a couple tries, but the figure was eventually able to rip the blades out of its chest, standing up like it had suffered no damage at all, and then starting to walk toward them. Now felt like a good time to use the open doorway that the Courier had seen moments before, so she and the mutant ran toward it, finding themselves inside of what looked like an old gift shop that she had seen inside of some of the larger pre-war hotels.

"Over there!" She exclaimed. "Come on!"

The shelves were empty, but there was a back door behind the counter, so Tonya ran over to it. With the urgency that came from being chased by something frightening, she pulled open the door, only to be surprised by a thick red kind of smoke when she stepped through. Immediately feeling a burning sensation on her skin, the Courier's eyes watered, and the worst was when she took in a short, surprised breath of air.

Every muscle in her body instantly cramped up, followed by an incredible feeling of nausea in her stomach, and the worst migraine of her life that seemed to intensify as she reflexively stumbled backwards into the gift shop. Falling over the counter and knocking the broken cash register onto the floor as if she were drunk, Tonya tried to stand back up, but could only cough before vomiting all over the display case.

Looking up through her watering eyes, the Courier was able to see the mutant knocking over a large cabinet in the doorway so that the approaching figure couldn't get in, but this barricade was already starting to break apart by the time the mutant grabbed her arm and pulled her over to a set of stairs that she hadn't seen before. _Crash!_ The green-eyed figure had broken through, and was now walking up the stairs after them by the time they reached the second floor.

Tonya's vision and nausea were starting to clear, almost being able to stand on her own, instead of having to lean on what was left of a large destroyed bed. In her current condition, her only saving grace was that the mutant was there, picking up an old end table and slamming it into the figure's head hard enough to make it tumble back down the stairs. There wasn't a lot of furniture left in this room for the mutant to use as a weapon, so the next time the gurgling figure came at him, the mutant was forced to use his bare hands.

Where most Super Mutants that the Courier had seen were big powerful brutes, this one now seemed unsure of himself when it came to going after the figure without a weapon, or maybe it was just because of how powerful it was. Either way, the mutant made a wild grab for it, but the figure avoided it by leaning backwards, before swinging upward with the spear. Caught right across the chest and face, the mutant cried out as he fell on his back, and now the green-eyed figure was raising its spear for the…

 _Bang!_ A flash of light and noise filled the bedroom, and there was a splash of yellowish fluid as one of the bullets from Tonya's revolver struck the figure right between the eyes. Dropping the spear, and doing a few erratic movements that might have been involuntary, the figure collapsed, once again tumbling down the stairs. Even though her affliction from the red smoke was almost gone, it had still taken a lot of effort to take out the weapon and also aim without hitting the mutant.

"Come on." The mutant said in a pained voice as he got to his feet. "We have to get out of here while we have the chance."

"What are you talking about?" She asked, struggling to put it back in the holster. "I just put a bullet the size of a…

Gurgling… the _figure's_ gurgling could be heard once again, and Tonya's only thought as the glowing green eyes of its mask came into view was _'are you fucking kidding me?'_. Part of the bedroom wall had collapsed, giving the two of them another escape onto the rooftop, where the mutant suddenly turned and ran off to the side, leaving the figure to go straight after the Courier. She had nowhere left to go, trapped against the rooftop's edge, but it was only one floor down, and she was considering the risks of jumping, the figure gurgled in an almost _surprised_ tone.

The mutant had come back, running right up behind the figure, grabbing it by the back of the hazard suit, and lifting it over his head. Turning toward the edge of the roof, he tossed the green-eyed figure down as hard as he could, causing their pursuer to crash into some trash cans on the way down, and lie still on the cobblestone. By now Tonya understood that it was just going to get up again, so she looked for an escape, only to spot an illuminated sign in the shape of a cross at the bottom of a building connected to this roof.

"There's the Clinic!" She announced. "Come on, before he gets up again!"

Running across the rooftop, the Courier sighed with relief after finding that there was a door into the building with the cross emblem. Unlocked, thank God, so she pulled it open, and then locked it behind them once they were both inside. Hopefully the green-eyed figure would either get disoriented from the fall, or simply not be able to find them once it got back up to the roof. Honestly thankful just for a moment to catch her breath, she leaned against the door, hoping that there weren't too many more surprises in this place.


	6. Chapter 6 Ghosts of the Past

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Six: Ghosts of the Past**

While it was easy for Tonya to catch her breath after a few moments, aside from some lingering coughing from that red smoke, the Super Mutant next to her was not having such an easy time about it. He was bleeding, a strange off-color fluid seeping out from his arm, as well as both head and chest where the green-eyed figure had cut him. The Courier knelt down with him after he gradually sunk down the wall to the floor, but at the moment there wasn't much that she could do for him.

"I'll be all right in a little while, I just need time." The mutant growled, gritting his teeth. "When I'm in control, fighting doesn't come as easy for this body as it does for Dog."

At this point Tonya was just happy to be alive after an encounter with that green-eyed figure, and she couldn't exactly criticize him for how he did, since she had spent the entire fight trying not to throw up her intestines after walking into that red smoke. What was that stuff anyway, some kind of gas? It looked just like the red cloud that covered the sky, so… was it more like fog banks that settled? That in itself was a disturbing thought, since it meant that there could be more pockets of that stuff lying around, but at least they had reached the Clinic.

"All right, you rest then." She said, looking around the corner at the start of a hallway. "I'll take a look around the Clinic, and see if I can't find the next person."

"Tonya, wait." The mutant replied, stopping her when she turned to leave. "Be careful… places like this sometimes still have working security so… watch out for ghosts of the past."

She assured him that she would keep an eye out, although not really understanding what he meant by ghosts of the past, but it probably meant that some of the alarms and old turrets were still functioning… although it was weird that a medical facility would have turrets in the first place. More of the lights in this building were functioning than had been inside the Police Station, giving the long hallways almost perfect illumination so that the Courier could see the mostly preserved carpets and office doors that lined each side of the hall after the next corner that she rounded.

The two of them had entered the Clinic on the second floor, so this was probably where all of the administrative offices and records were kept, which was probably a good place to start searching for where the Auto Doc machines were kept. Opening the first office door that she came to, Tonya found that it had already been ransacked by someone; the computer terminal was smashed, and all of the shelves and cabinets had been picked clean. With the mutant having said that others had been brought to the Sierra Madre, it made sense why supplies were so hard to find. So she was walking back into the hallway, ready to check the next office, when something caught her attention.

At the far end of the hallway, someone else was coming around the corner… someone who almost looked like they were _glowing_ with a blue light. Wearing what looked like a helmet and some kind of riot armor, this person was so silent while walking that even their footsteps didn't make any noise… but then they stopped and the shimmering light around them became yellow upon spotting her.

"Uh… hello." Tonya said, trying to appear non-threatening. "I'm not looking for any trouble, okay? Have you seen someone else in here recently, maybe near the Auto Docs? They might have been…

Suddenly the shimmering light around the person turned a deep, threatening red as they put their hands on top of their helmet, before somehow firing a blast of the same colored energy at her. The Courier felt a rush of heat as well as the crackling of electricity as the blast flew mere inches away from her face, instead slamming into the open office door behind her and shattering the small glass window while almost knocking it off its hinges.

A second blast forced her to take cover back inside that same office, and by now it was obvious that this glowing person was not friendly, so she took the revolver out of its holster on her belt. Tonya didn't know how this person was glowing, nor did she understand how laser shots came out of their head, but she need to stop it before one of those shots hit her, so she leaned out the doorway and took a shot at them.

 _Bang!_ One thing that the Courier had always been proud of was how good of a shot she was, and after aiming carefully at the glowing person, she pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right for their chest. It was right on target, but instead of a wound appearing on their shirt, the bullet struck the wall that was directly behind them… as if it had passed right through. The mutant's warning about _ghosts of the past_ now echoed through her mind, and with only four bullets left in her revolver, there was no way to keep testing it.

Those energy shots seemed real enough, she thought after having to duck back into the office to keep the next one from taking her head off, and now this _ghost_ or whatever it was had taken steps forward to pursue her. Staying inside the office was not an option, since there would be nowhere to run once the ghost reached the door, and she couldn't go back to the mutant, since he probably still couldn't defend himself, leaving Tonya's only way out to run down the other hallway.

Luckily for her the glowing ghost wasn't a very good shot, making things a little easier on her when she ducked down to dart out of the office, pulling open another door to give herself some cover while running away. It didn't run after her, though, instead maintaining its walking pace while the shooting continued, destroying end tables and putting large scorch marks across the walls. Putting distance between her and the ghost a little at a time, the Courier quickly rounded another corner in the hopes of breaking the line of sight, only this wasn't another hallway… it was a staircase.

Caught completely by surprise when the carpeted floor was no longer underneath her, Tonya cried out as she went tumbling down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom, and looking up… just as the red ghost reached the top of the stairs. Left dazed and sluggish from the fall, she froze, waiting for the ghost to finish her off, but the shot never came. Instead it just remained there at the top of the stairs, lowing its arms and turning yellow after several seconds… and then turning blue again as it walked away.

Sighing heavily with relief now that the danger was over, the Courier had a few moments to really think about what had just happened. She had never encountered anything like that before in all her years in the Mojave, but after seeing how Elijah had broadcasted himself, and watching the blue ghostly form of that beautiful woman at the center of the fountain, it was clear that Tonya had been dealing with some kind of hologram.

This had been the first hologram that she had ever seen that could chase and shoot lasers at people, but she could be damn sure that next time someone gave her a warning about this resort, the Courier was going to heed it. Now a little sore as she sat up, Tonya found herself looking out at some kind of reception lobby; mostly preserved with typewriters and a computer terminal on the large desk, filing cabinets that hadn't been touched, and a really sturdy looking lock on the inside of the Clinic's main door.

"Good thing we came in through upstairs." She groaned to herself, getting to her feet. "Now where the hell are these Auto Docs?"

Walking over to the reception desk, and going through the drawers, the first thing the Courier found was a laminated map that looked like it was supposed to have been hung on the wall, but never was. It was labeled with the location and purpose of every room, including a newer looking one that was labeled _Automated Wing_ , which was on this floor. Figuring that automated meant that the Auto Docs were stored there, Tonya was about to move on, when she saw that the computer terminal still had power.

It was locked with a password, but that didn't frustrate her, instead causing her to pull up a chair in front of the terminal. One nice thing about the pre-war _Robco Corporation_ was that their computers were designed to be fully accessible, meaning that someone with the right knowledge of _Root Commands_ and _DOS Shell_ would be able to startup _Maintenance Mode_ for password recovery. This had probably been meant only for Robco Technicians and the like, but in the Mojave Wasteland there were certain skills that a girl needed to have in order to survive.

A few keystrokes later the terminal responded to her, and out of the menus that came up, the folder marked _Security_ was the one she was looking for. A smile spread across Tonya's face when it gave her the option to shut down Holographic Security, and she pushed the button… only to gasp in horror as the red ghost standing right next to her vanished in the middle of firing its laser. Bringing her shaking hands to her head, and then putting it down on the desk as she realized what had almost happened, the Courier was relieved that the ghosts were gone, but near-death encounters tended to take their toll.

Now just as silent as it had been when she arrived, the Clinic made her even more nervous as she got up from the chair and looked down the hallway across from where she had come in. There were still some lights on, although not as many as there had been upstairs, but enough to let Tonya see her way, and she was a lot more cautious this time, in case that terminal hadn't controlled _all_ of the holograms, or just one side of the building, or something like that.

According to the map she had found in the drawer, the Automated Wing was down the hallway in front of her, and off to the left, so the Courier followed these simple directions, leading her to discover two important things: The first of which were bodies… more than a dozen dead human bodies, all wearing jumpsuits similar to hers, lying on examination tables… each looking like they had died from their head exploding. The second thing was that there were Auto Docs… big automated healing pods capable of enclosing a person… but there were more than a dozen of those as well, with no sign of whoever it was they were looking for.


	7. Chapter 7 A Scarred Woman

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Seven: A Scarred Woman**

As Tonya looked over the bodies lying on the examination tables, she couldn't help but wonder just how many people had been brought to the resort for whatever Elijah was planning. For so many people to fail like that, it must have been something pretty special, but the Courier didn't plan to end up like them. Throughout the Mojave, she had seen some pretty tempting things, but no treasures of any kind had been able to make her get herself killed.

No, she was going to get herself and her unfortunate _partners_ out of this mess no matter what, she thought while examining the rows of Auto Doc machines, but where in the hell was the person that was supposed to be in the Clinic? Checking machine after machine, Tonya found nothing but empty pods with glowing indicator panels, all waiting for a patient to operate on… all expect the last one… which was closed, and shooting out sparks where the indicator lights should have been.

The machine was active; the Courier being able to hear the sounds of working machinery and tools inside, as well as some kind of erratic pounding that just didn't seem like a sound that an Auto Doc should have been making. Another series of pounding noises, and Tonya realized that someone might have been trapped inside… oh God, trapped inside of a malfunctioning Auto Doc… whoever was in there, she had to get them out _now_.

Franticly searching for some kind of manual release for the machine, such a thing was difficult to find, mostly because these things were far more advanced than the older _claw model_ Auto Docs that were used at certain places in the New California Republic. There were no levers or buttons or anything, but maybe she could force it open, so the Courier was just barely starting to find a grip on the hatch… when she jumped as it flung open.

"Oh my God!" She exclaimed at what was found.

There was someone inside, all right; a woman in a white jumpsuit like hers, who collapsed into Tonya's arms, and the reason for her falling out like that was easy to see after taking one look at her. The woman's hair had been shaved off, and there were long cuts along her face and head that went all the way around and almost seemed surgical. Some of them must have been done a while ago since a lot of them had scarred over, but there was one across her throat that looked _really_ fresh.

She was breathing, but also making sort of coughing, rasping noises as the Courier helped her sit down on the floor against the wall. Tonya tried to get her attention, asking if she was all right, or if the woman could even hear her, but she looked really out of it, as if something really bad had happened with the Auto Doc. So the Courier tried to reassure her that everything was going to be all right, even though it probably wasn't, but then the woman seemed to instantly wake up with perfect clarity… before bringing up her leg and kicking Tonya in the stomach.

Caught completely off guard by this sudden attack, and already off balance from having been kneeling down with her, the Courier was knocked down while the scarred woman jumped to her feet. There was an angry expression on her face as she tried to say something, but then the angry expression changed to shock as no words came out. Trying to speak again, but with the same result as if something had completely stolen her voice, the scarred woman brought up her hands to her throat, now even more surprised when she felt the explosive collar.

"No, don't do that!" Tonya warned, getting up when she started to pull at it. "There's a bomb in your collar, and if you…

Her words became an outcry of pain when the scarred woman grabbed her outstretched hand and twisted it painfully behind her back, allowing her to slam the Courier face first into the hull of the nearest Auto Doc. Not letting go of her hand, the scarred woman pulled Tonya back in order to give her two kicks to the ribs, before finally releasing her in order to spin around and give her another kick to the stomach.

The force behind this last kick was so great that the Courier stumbled backwards, falling onto one of the examination tables, which rolled backwards until it crashed into the wall. Tonya fell to the floor when the table pitched over, and the scarred woman probably would have continued the attack if the Courier hadn't taken her revolver out of its holster, stopping the scarred woman in her tracks.

"God damn it, stop!" She ordered, pulling back the hammer. "I don't want to be here anymore than you do, but see my collar? Do you _see_ it? There's a bomb in both of _them_ , and if one of us dies then so does the other! We're _linked_ , don't you get it?!"

The scarred woman remained still with a confused look on her face, but hopefully she was starting to understand the situation that Elijah had put them into… because victim or not, if she kicked Tonya _one more time_ , then the Courier was more than willing to put a bullet in one of her legs. The scarred woman seemed to get it though, no longer attacking, but remaining in a hostile stance even after Tonya had put the revolver away.

"Look, I know you're scared and confused… I am, too." She continued, keeping her hands where the scarred woman could see them after getting up. "Neither of us wants to be here, but if we don't cooperate than Elijah's going to push the button and kill us both."

Visibly responding to the name Elijah in a way that suggested both that she knew who the old man was, and that they were not on the best of terms, a look in the scarred woman's eyes led the Courier to believe that the two of them were finally beginning to reach an understanding. This was great, since the scarred woman kicked _really_ hard, and Tonya didn't want to deal with any more of that.

"My name is Tonya Greene." The Courier said, reaching out her hand in a friendly gesture. "I know you can't speak for some reason, but can you maybe… write your name of something?"

The scarred woman looked around the room, but there was nothing to use for writing anywhere in sight, so she tried to silently mouth a few words instead. Throughout Tonya's life there had been a need for a lot of skills, but reading lips had never been one of them… although after the scarred woman had mouthed her sentence a few times, going slower each time in spite of getting frustrated and a little angry, Tonya managed to understand: _My name is Christine_."

"Christine?" She asked, causing the scarred woman to sigh with relief. "Your name is Christine?"

Some of the hostility in her stance was starting to fade, making the Courier start to believe that everyone could get through this alive after all, and then the scarred woman slowly reached out to take Tonya's hand. Of course, the moment was then ruined by the heavy sound of approaching footsteps, and Christine's eyes widened when she turned her head to see the partially recovered Super Mutant standing in the doorway.

"I heard some commotion on my way down." He said, stepping into the room. "Is this the one you were after?"

Her grip slowly tightening on the Courier's hand while the anger and confusion returned to her eyes, Tonya tried to tell Christine that everything was all right, but was interrupted when the scarred woman pulled her forward in order to slam her knee into the Courier's stomach. The wind was knocked out of her even before Christine's fist came upward to strike her on the cheek, sending Tonya falling back over another examination table, but then the mutant grabbed the scarred woman from behind before she could turn to attack him.

"Pretty feisty for a little painted doll." He said, making her cough when he squeezed her for restraint. "Tell me… were you carved by a master craftsman, or mauled by a drunk who didn't know his…

Now it was the mutant's turn to cry out in surprise when Christine suddenly slammed the back of her head into his face. Two more times she did this until he was forced to let her go, and then she grabbed a knife off one of the occupied examination tables. Looking in shock down at the headless bodies wearing the same jumpsuit as hers, the scarred woman was about to stab the stunned mutant, when there was a hard _whack_ as Tonya struck her in the back of the head with her revolver.

"Oh, God damn it." The Courier grumbled as Christine collapsed. "This is _not_ going to help her trust us… are you all right, Dog?"

"I told you, I am _not_ Dog." The mutant answered, holding his nose as he walked back into the room. "But you're right… for Elijah's purpose we need her cooperation, and these collars will kill us if we can't make her behave."

There were so many mysteries about the scarred woman; why had she been placed into the Auto Doc, for instance? Why had she been shaved and cut up like that, and most importantly, why had her vocal cords been severed? As much as Tonya wanted to wake her up and restart the negotiation process, both she and the mutant knew that they couldn't simply remain at the Clinic forever. With holographic security disabled, it was only a matter of time before the green-eyed figure found them.

"We have to get out of here." The Courier said. "Can you carry her back to the fountain?"

"I'd rather turn _Dog_ loose and watch him feed on her." The mutant replied with an irritated _huff_. "But I value staying alive more than entertainment, so yes, I'll carry your little doll."

Reaching down, and effortlessly tossing the unconscious Christine over his shoulder, the mutant started back down the hallway with Tonya following close behind. The lock on the Clinic's front door was one of the best that either of them had ever seen, meaning that they would have to go back upstairs to roof access, and retrace their steps from there. As they climbed the staircase, and made their way back to the unlocked door, each could only hope that the green-eyed figure had gone the wrong way while searching for them.


	8. Chapter 8 The Residential District

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Eight: The Residential District**

" _Good, I see you've managed to get two of your team back to the fountain_." The holographic face of Elijah said after they had returned from the Clinic. " _Your last man lives in the Residential District, opposite side of the resort_."

Thankfully the group had not encountered the green-eyed figure on the return trip, meaning that, hopefully, luck was on their side for once. However, with all of the unexpected things that Tonya had encountered so far, she was going to need more information than the old man had provided. She needed to know as much as he could tell her about the figure, the red cloud, holograms, all of it.

" _I don't have time to be your damn tour guide_." Elijah's voice hissed through the speakers. " _Avoid the green-eyed man, stay out of the red cloud, and shut down the holograms when possible. I've lost too many years in this place, and the cost has been too great for me to sit around holding your hand… now get moving_."

All right, not as helpful as the Courier had hoped, but the image of the old man was then gone, replaced once again by the hologram of the beautiful woman. The details of her features were hard to make out because of the flickering blue light that made up the image, but Tonya couldn't help but wonder who she was. The other holograms that she had seen in the Clinic while rescuing Christine had been generic men in riot armor, but there seemed to be a purpose to this one.

"Can you stay with Christine until she wakes up?" She asked, taking a look toward where the Residential District was supposed to be. "You know, to make sure that she doesn't accidently set off her collar or something."

The Super Mutant agreed to keep watch over the still unconscious scarred woman, allowing the Courier to begin her walk to finding their last person… as much as she hated the idea of being alone in the resort. Just as Elijah had described, the Residential District was not too far away, down a couple short cobblestone streets, to a place that was designed differently than where she had already been.

Unlike the areas where she had discovered Dog and Christine, which was made mostly of decaying shops and businesses, the Residential District was made for just that. The buildings were made of the same material with the same kind of architectural plan in mind, but there were no gift shops or café's. What there _was_ , however, was a larger presence of the red cloud that hung above the resort, in the form of pockets of smoke similar to the one she had walked into before, only _bigger_ … big enough to completely block the way forward.

A knot formed in Tonya's stomach as she remembered the affects of taking the slightest breath of that red smoke, and now the fog was literally blocking her from traveling any farther down the street. There was no way that the Courier was going to try something as ignorant as running through the red smoke in the hopes of it only being a small pocket… but maybe there was another way around.

Looking to the left and right, she spotted an intact looking door, and used it to enter the remains of a villa, immediately closing it behind her as to not attract any unwanted attention. After all, that green-eyed figure was still out there, so she tried to make as little noise as possible while moving through the house. The place was surprisingly well preserved; lights all seeming to work, with the living room and kitchen looking like the people who lived there would be walking into the room any second to have a normal day.

Unfortunately, the family that once owned the villa were not about to walk into the room, as their fate was discovered when Tonya walked into the bathroom, where three really old skeletons sat in the bathtub. They must have tried to hide in there when the bombs fell, Tonya thought as she took a closer look. The Courier had seen untold numbers of these kind of remains throughout her life, especially in places that were not so heavily traveled… but she couldn't help get choked up when she saw the smaller skeletons… this one holding an old teddy bear.

"What the _fuck_ were they thinking back then?" She whispered to herself, moving back into the living room and sitting on the couch. "Is this _really_ what people wanted?"

From old holovids that she had seen, and using the little bit of pre-war technology that had been scavenged, it seemed to Tonya that life before the bombs fell must have been pretty damn nice. So why had the people in charge back then gone and screwed everything up, filling the world with radiation and forcing the few people that survived to go down into those Vaults for however many years? Yes, there were groups of people that the Courier hated, namely Caesar's Legion, but no matter what awful things she wished would happen to Aurelius of Phoenix, she would never in a _million years_ consider using nuclear weapons.

Sniffling and wiping the single tear from her cheek, Tonya knew that she didn't have time for this kind of thinking, and needed to move on before the old man got bored or something and detonated her collar. So turned off the light in the bathroom and closed the door, the closest thing that she could have done to a proper burial, and then continued looking around for a way to bypass the red smoke outside. Going up to the second floor, and out onto the balcony, the Courier found that after climbing up onto the rooftop of the villa, she was now just a little bit higher than the cloud.

It was a good thing that these buildings were mostly connected to each other, because the pocket of red smoke that she was trying to avoid, turned out to be _a lot_ bigger than she thought. In fact, it covered most of the next block, but then Tonya suddenly dropped down onto her stomach out of reflex. For a moment… just for a _moment_ she had seen a flicker of green light within the fog, and then she saw it, the green-eyed figure slowly walking its way through the red smoke as if it wasn't even there.

Thankfully her pursuer hadn't seemed to notice her up on the roof, so the Courier crawled along, not daring to stand up all the way, for fear of having to face off against that monster yet again. This made the journey take a lot longer, but her safety was worth it, and soon she was past the red cloud. It took a little longer to find a way down this time, since a lot of the doors in this part of the Residential District were barricaded, and many of the stairwells inside villas that she could get into had collapsed… almost like it had been done on purpose.

People trying to protect themselves, maybe? Or some of the others that had been brought there before, trying to kill each other? Whatever the reason for the obstructions, it took a while for Tonya to find a safe way down to the street, and she was just starting to continue walking down the cobblestone, when some movement caught her eye. A metal object, like a pre-war fire extinguisher or something, was spinning as it flew through the air, and the only thing that saved the Courier's life was how far away it landed from her.

 _BOOM!_ The canister exploded in a flash of light and heat as soon as it struck the ground, and although it had landed far enough away to keep her from being incinerated, this did nothing to protect her from the _force_ of the blast. Launched from her feet, and sent rolling backwards across the cobblestone, Tonya came to a stop against the wall of another fountain like the one she had seen in the big courtyard, but her blurred vision and ringing ears didn't stop her from seeing where this… _gas bomb_ had come from.

There, walking slowly out of the red fog, was the green-eyed figure, making that gurgling sound again as it walked toward her. Carrying its knife-spear in one hand, and eyes of its mask locked onto the Courier, Tonya was not afraid to admit how frightened she was becoming of this… whatever in the hell it actually was. She tried to get to her feet, but the explosion left her body sluggish and sore, with the disorientation so bad that she was barely able to sit up against the wall of the fountain.

 _Gotta get away_ , was the only thought in her head as she struggled to get up with the help of the wall, _gotta get away_. Trying her best to move, and panic settling in as the green-eyed figure got closer, the Courier had only succeeded in getting to her knees, when her pursuer pinned her down by raising its leg, and putting its foot down onto her back so that she was bent over the wall. Arms flailing wildly for something to help her get away, Tonya let out a high pitch scream as the figure raised its spear, but then her hand hit something.

 _Click_ , there must have been some kind of switch or something on the wall of the fountain, because there was a sound of some kind of projector starting up, and then the same beautiful woman appeared standing at the center of the fountain in flickering blue light. The green eyes of its mask immediately turning upward, her pursuer gurgled as its foot moved off of her back, and the figure seemed to forget about the courier completely as it approached the hologram. There it stood, motionless and head tilted slightly to the side as if it were in a trance, and Tonya wasn't about to waste this opportunity to escape.

The ringing in her ears was mostly gone, and her vision was slowly refocusing, allowing the Courier to get to her hands and knees… and eventually to her feet, while still leaning heavily on the fountain wall. Her pursuer was still transfixed on the hologram, so Tonya stumbled away from the fountain, trying her best to stay balanced as she moved toward the first door that she saw. Expecting any second to feel a spear stabbing through her back, she pulled open the door, which was thankfully unlocked, and then locked it behind her after entering another villa.

With both hands on her head to stop the remaining dizziness from the gas bomb, she leaned against the wall, hoping that the green-eyed figure would remain there staring at the hologram of the beautiful woman long enough for her to recover. Of course, Tonya still had to find the last person that Elijah wanted, but that could wait at least until her head stopped spinning. Suddenly another noise, subtle but enough to reach her ears, came from above… meaning that the Courier was not alone inside this building.


	9. Chapter 9 Dean Domino

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Nine: Dean Domino**

Waiting another minute or so for the last of the gas bomb's effects to wear off, Tonya tried to make as little noise as possible as she drew the revolver, and also took out her knife. Something had definitely moved upstairs in this villa, and although there was a chance that it was the person she was looking for, it was also possible for it to indicate the presence of something hostile. Not even wanting to _think_ about the possibility of a second green-eyed figure, the Courier carefully moved toward the stairs, watching and listening for any more movement.

One thing that she did notice about this villa, though, was that it was well preserved, much more so than any of the others that she had seen. There was no dust or clutter on the floor, and everything was organized as if someone spent a great deal of time keeping the place up, and every single light worked. This was good, because there was nowhere that she couldn't see, but at the same time any kind of stealth was out of the question, so maybe she should announce her presence to avoid the wrong idea.

"Hello?" She called, a bit nervously while moving up the carpeted stairs. "Is anyone here? I'm looking for someone… probably has a collar around their neck?"

There was no answer by the time Tonya reached the top of the stairs, finding herself in an even better maintained room. Plenty of food and water was stacked on top of the kitchen table, and there was music playing on the small radio over by the window, even though the static made it almost impossible for her to tell what song it was. Some pre-war posters hung on the walls; one of them for someone named _Dean Domino the King of Swing_ … whatever that was supposed to mean, and there was another poster for something called _Love Sets Sail_ , but then the corner of her eye saw movement.

Seeming to come out of nowhere, a dark figure gave her a kind of karate chop on the forearm, making the Courier cry out as her revolver fell to the floor, and she tried to stab at him with the knife, only to have him lean backwards to avoid it. The dark figure came back forward with a hard palm-strike to her chest, while at the same time hooking her with his foot, causing Tonya to stumble backwards where she fell into a lounge chair… to the sound of a sharp _click_ from underneath the cushion.

"Recognize that sound, do you?" The dark figure said as some of the color drained from her face. "Then be a good girl and toss that knife away."

A pressure plate from some kind of explosive device was the only thing that made a sound like that, as far as the Courier knew, and she didn't have the skills to disarm such a thing, especially while it was hidden by the chair's cushion. The uncomfortable feeling of the device being pressed against her rear made her realize that this threat was very real, giving her no choice but to toss her only remaining weapon over to where she couldn't reach it.

There we go, wouldn't want someone to get _hurt_ now, would we?" He asked, picking up her revolver and opening the cylinder. "Little girls should know better than to play with guns."

When he stepped into the light, Tonya realized by his mostly burnt off skin, that this person was a Ghoul; humans who had been somehow mutated by incredibly high radiation exposure instead of killed, and who could live for a really long time. His manner of speaking was polite though, almost condescending, and instead of the white jumpsuit that she and Christine had been given, he was in what looked like an old tuxedo with a crooked bowtie and everything.

"That was a pretty clever trick out there with the hunter." The Ghoul continued, closing the chamber and sitting across from her in the other chair. "Who knows why he's drawn to those old holograms, but… hold on a moment."

Getting up again, and retrieving a small framed picture from on top of the bookcase, he returned to his chair and studied it, before looking at Tonya just as intently. Shifting his gaze between her and the picture several times, he then went to look out the window where the green-eyed figure was still mesmerized by the beautiful woman's hologram, before returning to his chair and setting the picture down.

"I need you to do me a favor, girl." He said calmly. "Unzip your jumpsuit so that you're showing some cleavage, and then kind of stack up your hair on top of your head, you know, like a beehive."

Needless to say, the Courier didn't want to accommodate this… _awkward_ request, but after being reminded about the gun in his hand _and_ the explosive that she was literally sitting on, it seemed that once again she had no choice. So Tonya did as he asked, glaring angrily at the Ghoul while making herself up the way he said, and to her surprise he gasped as if making some kind of discovery.

"My God, you… you look _just_ like her." He commented while she zipped up her jumpsuit. "Your voice is all wrong; too high and kind of annoying, but as long as you keep your mouth shut, you're the spitting image."

"What are you talking about?" She asked, putting her hair back into its original style. "Who do I look like?"

He shook his head as if the answer should have been obvious, and then pointed to the _Love Sets Sail_ poster, featuring a girl who… who looked a lot like Tonya. The Ghoul sighed with disappointment when she asked who that person was, before explaining that it was _Vera Keyes_ , the famous starlet whose hologram had just saved her life. Now ranting about how Vera had been the reason that someone named _Sinclair_ had built the whole Sierra Madre, it wasn't until he leaned his head back that the Courier saw that he was wearing the same kind of collar that she and Christine had on.

"Look, that collar means that you're the one I'm looking for." She said, trying to sound pleasant. "And we're kind of stuck together, so how about we start fresh? I'm Tonya Greene… and you are?"

"You mean you don't even know who _I_ am?" The Ghoul asked, somewhat shocked. "Well, I guess my face _has_ changed a bit over the past two centuries, radiation and all… but you are in for a _treat_ , little girl. Boy are you going to just _shriek_ with delight when you find out that you are sitting down with _Dean Domino_ the _King of Swing_ , _himself_."

He just sat there as if waiting for some kind of expected reaction from her, but aside from the poster that she had just seen, the Courier had no idea who Dean Domino was. Once he realized this, the Ghoul let out a frustrated _huff_ , before ranting this time about how he had once received _top billing_ in every major city in America, and even a few in Europe… whatever that meant.

"Oh, I suppose after two hundred years of not being on stage, people are bound to forget." Dean groaned, folding his arms. "There was a time though, before the war, when cute little things like _you_ would throw their hotel room keys on stage, just hoping that I'd choose them for a night of _passion_ and…

"Can you disarm this explosive, please?" Tonya interrupted, not wanting to imagine him having a _night of passion_ with anyone. "You do realize that if I die, you die, right?"

Apparently, no he _hadn't_ realized that, and after the Courier had explained about their collars being linked, the Ghoul was more than happy to reach under the cushion and turn off his homemade device. Reaching out his hand to help her to her feet, this one brief moment of chivalry was ruined when he commented that she was _right as rain_ before swatting her rear with his hand hard enough to make her jump.

Officially having enough of the way he talked to her, and his personality in general, Tonya took a swing at him, but Dean simply grabbed her arm as if expecting it. Kicking her in the back of the knee while twisting her arm behind her back, the Ghoul was able to slam her down so that she was bent over the nearby counter; bending her fingers back so that it hurt really bad any time she tried to move.

"I know what you're thinking, sweetheart." Dean said, bending her fingers more so that she cried out. "How can a man so talented, famous, _and_ handsome also be able to so adequately handle himself in a fight? Well, it's amazing what one can accomplish with two hundred years of spare time, and the complete collector's library of _Pugilism Illustrated_."

Eventually he let her go, and Tonya might have attacked again, if she hadn't seen that he was now aiming the revolver at her. This kind of behavior in someone who was supposed to help her with something, made the concept of linked bomb collars start to make sense, because who even _knew_ what someone like Dean would do if their lives weren't tied together? It was also a bit surprising that the Ghoul didn't ask what they were needed at the fountain for once she got to explaining that part, instead simply remarking that _old Elijah must be getting desperate_.

"Oh well, I suppose this _contract_ is pretty solid." He commented, briefly touching his collar. "All right then, doll face, _strike up the band_ , Dean Domino's back in town… you can have the knife, but stay in front of me. I'd like to watch you _walk_ a bit."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tonya demanded after picking up the knife. "This is a _life or death_ situation, don't you realize that? Elijah could kill us at any time, especially if we take too long, so we need to keep focused."

In response Dean made a condescending remark about how _cute_ she was when she was angry, and at that point the Courier wasn't going to stand there anymore and listen to it. He could follow if he wanted, but she was heading back to the fountain, and the _hunter_ as he called it was still staring at the flickering hologram, meaning that the route might even be safe if they moved quickly.


	10. Chapter 10 Working Relations

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Ten: Working Relations**

"Yes, the cloud can be quite difficult to avoid these days." Dean Domino said as Tonya looked for a way around. "It wasn't always here, though… just kind of started pouring out of the casino's pipes during final construction, and spread even without cars or factories."

"There's not really a way to get back onto the roof I used to get here." The Courier replied, remembering having to jump down. "Damn it, how are we going to get back to the fountain?"

Chuckling to himself, the Ghoul explained that the resort had not been built like some prison or an _Eastern Europe ghetto_ , whatever that was, and suggested that an alternative could be found if she were to ask _very_ nicely. After all, according to Dean, he had been trapped at the resort for the past two hundred years, so the Courier asked for him to _please_ show her the way around.

"Anything for you, honeybun." The Ghoul said, gesturing for her to follow him. "I know that everyone wants to walk in the spotlight, but sometimes the easiest way to avoid a crowd is to go backstage."

She followed him away from the cloud, and to the other side of the street from his villa, where a metal gate with a large padlock blocked the entrance to a back alley that looked to be free of the red smoke. Dean then took a large key ring out of his pocket, and after searching through more than two dozen keys, the lock to the gate popped open. _Screech_ , the partially rusted hinges made an awful sound as he pulled open the gate, only to close it again once the two of them were through.

"Best to lock up before we leave, sweetcakes." Dean said, replacing the padlock. "The power systems around the resort can be buggy sometimes, and you never know how long the holograms are going to last."

For the moment the hologram of Vera Keyes was still holding the green-eyed figure's attention, but Tonya agreed with the Ghoul that they needed to get away from it as fast as possible just in case. Now moving down some kind of maintenance alley between two sets of residential buildings, ducking under and moving around all of the old air conditioning systems and electrical conduits as they made their way back the way she came.

"So what do you know about the green-eyed man back there?" Tonya asked, ducking under a pipe. "Do you know any way of stopping him besides the hologram?"

"Princess, I'm going to give you _two_ pieces of advice." The Ghoul replied. "First, nothing I've _ever_ seen can hurt that thing, so best to simply avoid him. Second, you're pretty, but your voice kind of annoys me, so… smile more, talk less, okay?"

Stopping in her tracks and turning heel, the Courier experienced a feeling of satisfaction when her fist collided with Dean's jaw hard enough to make him drop the revolver. Now taking the knife out of its sheath once again, she shoved him up against the wall, putting the blade to his throat so that he couldn't move. Looks like he couldn't always be so quick with his hands, and although she had never been one to enjoy needless violence, this time it felt kind of nice.

"All right, now I'm going to give _you_ some advice." Tonya said, holding him there. "One: I _hate_ pet names, so don't call me them anymore. Two: I don't like being groped by strange men, especially when they are old enough to be my… _ancestor_."

"Three." The Ghoul interrupted, putting his hand on a nearby junction box. "The cloud originally got sucked up into A/C vents."

Pushing the lid open before she could react, the Courier received a face full of pain when the red smoke burst from the junction box, engulfing them both. As had happened before, her eyes watered to the point of almost blindness, and her skin felt like it was on fire, as did all of her insides after taking in a much larger breath than she had gotten before. Stumbling blindly away from it, she moved out of the tiny pocket after a few steps, only to trip on a pipe, and fall on her face.

"Yes, the cloud _can_ be painful." Dean said, walking out of it unharmed. "Got used to it in small doses over the years, but _tourists_ like you don't stand a chance."

Trying as she might, her whole body was unresponsive, leaving Tonya only able to cough and gasp for breath with tears running down her face as the Ghoul stood over her. It seriously felt like all of her insides were on fire, so she almost didn't notice when Dean grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up to her knees. Continuing to pull her upward until she was standing, there was nothing the Courier could do to stop the Ghoul from slugging her in the stomach.

"Now you listen to _me_ , you little _brat_." He said, holding her up as she continued coughing. "Our lives might be tied together, but you raise a hand to me again, and I'll _take_ you like a _three dollar whore_ on _Freemont Street_."

Not that Tonya was capable of saying anything, thanks to her lungs being full of the red smoke, but Dean smacked her in the mouth and pushed her back down to the ground before having the opportunity to do so. The Courier heard him say something about seeing her at the fountain, and then she heard him walking away after picking up both her knife and revolver… right about the same time she vomited up some of the poison.

That Ghoul was going to pay for treating her like that, she thought while trying to pull herself to her feet. Tonya had met plenty of chauvinistic assholes like him over the course of her life, and as soon as they no longer had to worry about the collars, she was going to pay him back for all of it a hundred fold. Anger was helping her to get past the effects of the cloud as they slowly wore off, and her mind forced her to remember how Aurelius of Phoenix had gotten away with doing far worse to her, but that was only because he had fifty Legionaries guarding him.

"Call _me_ a fucking brat." Tonya grumbled to herself, coughing out the remnants of the poison. "You'll get yours, Dean… you'll get yours."

Without many options for dealing with him at the moment, and now understanding more than ever why the linked bomb collars were necessary, the Courier had no choice but to play nice for now, continuing down the alley to where it ended really close to the fountain. Christine had regained consciousness by the time she rejoined the group, and at least this time the scarred woman wasn't attacking the others, even though she was keeping both her distance and a guarded stance.

"Don't talk much, do you, love?" The Ghoul asked, scoffing as she frowned at him, but then glancing at Tonya's approach. "I know another girl around here who should take a page from your book."

"So what happens now that we're all here?" The mutant asked before the Courier could say anything. "When are you going to tell us what this is all about, Tonya?"

" _What this is about, you FEV reject_." The booming voice of Elijah interrupted as his image replaced Vera's hologram. " _Is me giving commands, and you all obeying them. We're going to make history tonight, people, by being the first people in two hundred years to break into the Sierra Madre Casino_."

So that was it… a heist? All of this was for breaking into some pre-war building that contained a bunch of stuff that nobody wanted anymore? No, according to the old man, it was about far more than that; the Sierra Madre wasn't just some locked door that hadn't been opened in a while… in fact, the whole place had never opened at all. According to his research, and confirmed by Dean, the bombs had fallen literally an hour before the doors were set to open, meaning that all of the wealth, technology, and supplies within were brand new.

" _As much as I wish it weren't so, this job cannot be done alone_." The old man continued. " _For some reason the idiot who built this place tied the unlocking of the doors to an event called the Gala, and exactly four sets of hands are required to make the magic happen. That means that you all have a specific role to play, and I expect nothing less than perfection_."

There was some more ranting about how many years Elijah had wasted watching previous teams turn on each other once the greed set in, and how he knew that this time was going to be different. Once that was finished, the old man started laying out their individual assignments, beginning with how Tonya was supposed to make sure that all the others arrived safely at their locations.

The Super Mutant was to be placed at the primary switching station to activate the extra power supply that was dedicated just for the Gala event. Christine was to be taken to the resort's primary relay station, so that she could divert any power back to the Gala that overflowed into the resort's main grid, since it would fail otherwise. Dean was slated to be stationed on a rooftop over near the Clinic, where Elijah was actually a bit vague as to what he was supposed to do with the primary audio system for the speakers, and after all that Tonya had to climb to the top of a bell tower, the highest building aside from the Sierra Madre itself, and trigger the event.

" _Now pay attention, you idiots, because this is where everyone else screwed it up_." The old man's voice continued. " _You must remain at your positions, and trigger the event as instructed… that means don't try to run for the casino early, and don't try to kill the others because you think you can do two jobs at one… trust me, you can't. Just obey me and everything will turn out fine… or do something stupid, and I'll get the next team to do it. Now move, the Madre's not getting any younger_."

"And neither is Elijah." The mutant commented once Vera's hologram came back. "He knows that age is catching up with him… age and failure, both breeding desperation. He really _will_ kill us if we don't obey."

"All right, then." The Courier said, sighing as she looked at the group. "Let's get started."


	11. Chapter 11 A Rough Start

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Eleven: A Rough Start**

With the exception of Dean Domino, Tonya was feeling a lot safer now that she was walking around the resort with a group of people, opposed to the times when she had been exploring alone. Of course, even with as bad as the Ghoul was, he knew his way around the maze of buildings, which came in handy because the places that Elijah wanted them to go were not exactly marked on the street signs.

So far the green eyed figure hadn't shown its face since the Courier had activated that hologram on the fountain, giving her both time to wonder how it was that she looked so much like Vera Keyes, and to also figure out a way to more effectively communicate with Christine. The scarred woman's silent words could be understood through lip-reading if she went slowly enough, and there was always the option of pantomiming simple needs and ideas, as well as nodding or shaking her head.

From what Tonya had gathered from their conversations, Christine had no idea how she had gotten to the resort, nor how she had ended up inside of that malfunctioning Auto-Doc. The startling part of their talks was that, with the exception of the scar along her neck that had cut her vocal cords, her shaved head and other scars on her face had been there from before. The scarred woman must have led a pretty interesting life, but suddenly Tonya's attention was called back to the road ahead when everyone stopped walking.

"Why are you just standing there?" The mutant asked as Dean looked around. "Don't tell me that you've gotten _lost_ in a place where you've lived for _two hundred_ years."

"Hold on, maybe we _should_ stop for a minute." The Courier said when she heard the mutant's stomach growl _very_ loudly. "Let's all spread out and look for some food before…

"Hush, princess, the _men_ are talking." The Ghoul interrupted before turning back to the mutant. "I am not _lost_ , you towering ape, and for your information I happen to be… hey… what's wrong with you?"

Tonya had been trying to help out the situation that Dean was putting himself in, having remembered what happened with the mutant when he was hungry back at the Police Station, but since he wanted to keep running his mouth, maybe it was time for the Ghoul to find out what was going on for himself. Where the Super Mutant had been standing upright, while moving and speaking with intelligence and distinction, he was now hunching over… looking around with an almost vacant expression.

"Stop looking at me like that, you freak." Dean continued. "What in the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"Dog is _hungry_ , and sick of your voice!" The mutant snapped, causing everyone to jump. "Stupid little man just _talk, talk, talk_ , when he _should_ be giving Dog _food, food, food_!"

The Courier started forward to interrupt the escalating situation, but Christine stopped her; shaking her head as if the scarred woman _wanted_ the two of them to get into it. Not that the Ghoul didn't deserve to be brought down a peg or two, but things started to get tense when Dog growled at Dean, causing him to step back while pulling out the revolver that he had taken away from Tonya.

"Just keep your distance, _Muttley_." The Ghoul said, aiming at the mutant. "One wrong move, and I'll put one between your eyes."

"Dog has been shot before… _many_ times by _food_." Dog replied, growling as he took another step forward. "You _look_ like food… you _smell_ like food… food can run or fight, but Dog's belly _always_ ends full!"

With a feral roar the mutant dove at Dean, with the Ghoul having to jump back to keep from being tackled. Dean looked like he was trying to aim again, but there was no time as Dog snarled while jumping to his feet, causing the Ghoul to _yelp_ and run away while the mutant chased him down the street on all fours like an animal. As entertaining as it was to watch Dean get chased away like that, the Courier knew that she had to do something, if nothing else, for the fact that if the Ghoul died they would all follow.

"Christine, go look in there." Tonya said, pointing to an open door across the street. "I'll look in here; we _gotta_ find something for Dog to eat before he gets us all killed."

Now that they had left the Residential District and returned to where all of the old shops and businesses were located, it didn't take long before the two women found a few cans of various types of food. Christine had a larger amount in her hands when she returned to the street, but then took a moment to point back at the old shop, shake her head, and then make a strange kind of motion toward her foot that the Courier eventually figured out meant that there were traps inside.

Always good to know where the floors had teeth, especially after that tripwire booby-trap that Tonya had nearly killed herself on while searching for clothes. Anyway, they could still hear the Ghoul screaming from down the street, so they followed the noise, rounding a corner, and stopping in their tracks at what they saw. The revolver had been dropped in the street, allowing Tonya to reclaim it, while Dean himself… was above them.

In his panicked attempt to get away from Dog, the Ghoul had somehow climbed right to the top of a working streetlamp; clinging to the top of it for dear life while the mutant repeatedly jumped up, reaching and biting for him like a rabid animal. The two women chuckled at this spectacle for a few moments, and then the Courier let out a sharp whistle that immediately caught the mutant's attention.

Dropping the cans of food on the street and backing up a safe distance, the two women were a bit frightened, themselves as Dog scrambled toward them, but thankfully he dove onto the cans instead of them. Shoving can after can into his mouth without opening them, and then swallowing without even bothering to chew, the stack of cans, that would normally have fed a group their size for several days, was gone in seconds.

Once everything had been shoved down his stomach, Dog stood up in order to let out a _belch_ that was loud enough to echo off the nearby building walls… and then he changed again. The vacant expression on his face was replaced by intelligence, and he slowly stood upright again while Dean watched to make sure it was safe. Once he was sure that the feral personality of the mutant was gone, the Ghoul slowly climbed down from the streetlamp just as it was flickering on along with others nearby.

"Is it night time already?" The mutant asked, looking up at the sky. "It's so hard to tell with that cloud blocking out the sun."

"I certainly hope you _girls_ got a good _chuckle_ out of that." Dean interrupted before anyone could answer. "Good to see a man like me get chased around, was it? Well, I might have forgotten to mention this at my home, darling, but that _hunter_ you're so fond of is drawn to _noise_. Now give me back my gun, and let's get…

He had been stomping arrogantly toward the Courier, probably going to try and steal their only gun back from her, but then it was the Ghoul's time to get interrupted when Christine stepped into his way. There was a stern look on her face, and the muscles on her arms, which were quite impressive for a woman, were tightening up as if she were prepared to throw down with him right there.

"If that green eyed thing is coming, then we need to get out of here." Tonya said, wanting to avoid another fight among the team. "Come on, Christine, let's get to the first position."

"Oh, is that how is it, sweetheart?" Dean continued when they had resumed walking down the street. " _Batting for the other team_ , are you? Well, better enjoy her while you _can_ , Christine, because by the time I'm done with her, Tonya will be _worshiping_ me just like every other _tart_ who I…

The scarred woman did not even attempt to communicate a reply, instead simply raising her fist upward when the Ghoul got close enough behind her, and the next thing anyone knew, Dean was knocked on his rear. It looked like Christine was going to keep going after him again, but the Courier stopped her again. Yes, Dean was one of those men who deserved to be dragged behind her motorcycle, but with every second that passed, this _team_ was coming closer to killing each other… once again making her understand what happened to all the others before them, so she aimed the revolver into the sky and fired off a shot to get their attention.

"You want noise?! There's some noise!" Tonya shouted, suddenly finding all of them silent. "I don't know if any of you _dipshits_ remember, but there's a God damn _bomb_ wrapped around each of our necks, but go ahead… yell and make sexist remarks like a New Reno standup act, or better yet, why don't I just set off my bomb collar right here?"

For once no one had anything to say, and for a moment the Courier felt hope that she was finally getting through to them. She, more than any of them wanted to shoot Dean and run away from this place without looking back, but they were trapped in the resort until the old man's heist was pulled off. This was her chance to get them focused, and pull them together as a team that might not only live, but… but why was everyone looking _past_ her?

Slowly turning around, Tonya joined them in the blank stare when she saw that it had not been her speech that caught everyone's attention… but the green-eyed figure standing silently at the corner of the street about a building away. It was motionless, green eyes locked on the four of them while holding its knife-spear sideways across its hands. Dean and the mutant looked nervous, while Christine had a confused look on her face, probably because this was the first time she had seen the figure.

 _Bang!_ The Courier pulled the trigger, a bullet into her pursuer's shoulder while walking right toward it. _Bang! Bang!_ One in the chest, and one going right through one of the figure's green eyes, making the glow stop as it stumbled backwards. _Click._ Stopping in her tracks as soon as she realized that there were no more bullets in the chamber, Tonya could only watch in horror as the eye in the figure's mask that she had shot started glowing again, and the only thing she could think to do was toss the revolver at it.

"Everybody run!" She yelled as the weapon struck the figure in the mask. "Run!"


	12. Chapter 12 Signal Interference

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twelve: Signal Interference**

Within seconds all of the damage that the green eyed figure had taken from the revolver was gone, and it gurgled while beginning its stalk-hunting pursuit of the team. The facility where Christine was supposed to go was close, but with the figure following them, there was no way to leave the scarred woman there safely, so if there was any chance for this Gala thing of Elijah's to succeed, then some members of the team would have to act as a distraction.

"We need to split up." Tonya said, looking at the nearby building and then at the approaching figure. "You two draw it away while I get Christine into position, and then I'll come and back you up."

Dean started to argue, of course, but he only managed to get out about half of his protest before the Super Mutant picked up a nearby trashcan, letting out an angry roar as he tossed it at the figure. _Crash!_ The metal trashcan struck home, hitting their pursuer in the chest, and knocking it down while papers and trash scattered across the street. Well, he had certainly gotten the green eyed figure's attention; their pursuer gurgling and heading toward the two males instead of the women, giving Tonya and Christine the chance to duck out of sight while Dean and the mutant ran away very loudly.

"Come on." The Courier whispered while the figure moved off to follow them. "Now's our chance."

Having ducked down behind a much larger trash bin, it was easy for the two of them to remain crouched down while going around the other side of the building, toward a set of stone stairs. These stairs led up to a building that was taller than the shops and cafés around it, boasting a third floor, as well as what looked like more of that red smoke coming out of the exhaust fans on the lowest floor… as well as pooling up in a vast pocket that could be seen covering everything beneath the stairs once the two of them were at the top.

"Let's just hope it's not _inside_ the building as well." The Courier said, pulling the metal door open.

Closing and locking the heavy door once they were inside, they found themselves inside of some kind of maintenance shop; racks and shelves full of spare parts and old rusted tools lined the walls, but the good news was that there was no sign of the red cloud so far. Walking over to one of the racks and picking up a large combination wrench, Tonya felt a little better now that she had _some_ kind of weapon to defend herself, and apparently Christine had the same idea, choosing a long metal pipe.

"Well, it isn't exactly an _NCR armory_." The Courier said, making the scarred woman silently smile a bit. "But it's better than _nothing_ , right? Come on, let's find this repay station."

As the two of them moved through the shop, toward a staircase that went upward, a strange kind of static reached Tonya's ears, like… like trying to tune in to a station with an old radio that had bad speakers. There was a good amount of power coming with the signal as well; feeling it in her head and almost in her teeth by the time that the Courier started to hear the garbled gibberish coming from some kind of speaker mounted on the wall inside the stairwell.

 _Beep-beep-beep_ , at first Tonya thought that maybe she had tripped some kind of motion detector alarm, looking around for the source of the new sound for a moment before seeing a red light blinking out of the corner of her eye. The Courier's mouth ran dry and a knot formed in her stomach when she realized that the beeping sound was coming from her _bomb collar_ … a beeping that was getting faster.

"Oh my God, what's it doing?" She asked, turning to Christine while trying not to panic. "Christine, what's happening?!"

The scarred woman rushed over to take a look at the collar, but stopped when hers started to beep as well. Taking a second to listen to the sound, and then become wide-eyed when Tonya's collar started beeping so fast that it was almost a solid sound, Christine suddenly grabbed her by the front of the jumpsuit and pulled. Nearly lifting the Courier of her feet while pulling her from the stairwell, both of their collars suddenly stopped beeping.

Both of them let out a sigh of relief when the immediate danger was over, but then the scarred woman slowly walked back toward the stairwell, stopping for a second when her collar started beeping… and then making it stop when she stepped away. Turning back to Tonya, she tapped her collar, pointed toward the stairwell, and then started opening and closing her hand, making it clear that she had discovered what was going on with their collars.

"Wait, Christine!" The Courier exclaimed when she walked back into the stairwell. "Christine, your…

 _Crash!_ At first Tonya was scared that the scarred woman's collar had gone off, and she ran over to the stairwell, realizing that her own collar wasn't beeping, just as she saw Christine standing over the broken remains of that speaker that had been on the wall. But how was it that a signal from speakers was making their collars malfunction, unless… unless Elijah was using some kind of radio frequency detonator.

If that were true, then the two women had to avoid those kind of speakers to be safe… of course, this was the only one that they had seen… but it also meant that the old man could broadcast the detonation signal over the resort's intercoms as well… oh wow, Tonya thought… there really _was_ no way to run from him. The Courier had kept hoping that she would find a way to get out of the resort without having to go along with Elijah's plan, but… there was just no way.

Back on track to get Christine into position, the two of them walked up to the top of the stairwell, coming to a really high up area that might have once had walkways… walkways that must have collapsed at some point, since they could see pieces of them sticking out… of the red cloud that covered everything below them. There was no second floor, just this high area and a straight drop down onto some sparking pillars, making the Courier realize that this was some kind of power substation.

A few I-Beams were left stretching across the expanse, forming a kind of framework that could maybe walk across if they were careful, and that's when the scarred woman pointed out some kind of enclosed control room on the far side of the chamber. There was definitely some kind of monitoring station inside, as well as a metal staircase that led down into the red smoke, but the two of them were going to have to make it across in order to find out if it contained anything they could use.

"Well, come on, then." Tonya said, swallowing hard as she looked down. "Okay, Tonya, gotta be graceful… gotta be graceful."

Carefully taking the first step onto the nearest I-Beam, the Courier found it a lot harder to be graceful than her mind had pictured it, so she took her time very slowly moving a half-step at a time down the beam. Christine, on the other hand, was having no trouble at all; holding the metal pipe crossways to help balance herself, the scarred woman moved a lot more quickly and gracefully down the beam until she got to a junction between them.

"It's all right… I'm good." Tonya said, sweating even more as she kept going. "You're just a show off, is all."

Almost to the junction, the Courier sighed with relief when Christine held out her hand to assist her on the last bit, and then hugged the scarred woman out of reflex once they were both standing on the wider connecting junction. Unfortunately, there were three _more_ sections of I-Beam to cross before reaching the control station, and Christine was trying to show her how to walk so that she was more balanced, when another sound interrupted the lesson… a _gurgling_ sound.

"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me." Tonya said loudly. "How did he get in through the locked door, and…

Her thoughts were brought to a screeching halt as the green eyed figure started walking down the beam, having even more control in its steps than Christine had, without holding its speak crossways. There was no way for them to outrun it in this situation, so the Courier started to get ready to fight, when the scarred woman held out her arm to block her. Christine then touched her own shoulder before pointing at the approaching figure, next tapping Tonya's shoulder and motioning toward the control station.

There was no way that she wanted to leave the scarred woman there alone to face the figure, especially after she had seen how easily it had taken down the mutant, but then Christine pushed her toward the next section of beam, while holding up the metal pipe in a defensive posture. Gurgling again, the figure slashed at her with its spear, but the scarred woman deflected it with her pipe, before spinning around and jamming the end into the figure's stomach.

Gurgling as it stumbled back across the first beam, Christine pursued the figure, but this time it was she who had to back off when her next attack missed, and the figure managed to barely graze her arm when it stabbed in return. Tonya tried to focus on keeping her balance, moving closer and closer to the station, while fighting off the urge to watch how the scarred woman was doing against their pursuer… but she couldn't help but look every couple seconds.

Christine was doing her base to hold off the figure, moving with agility and balance that the Courier was just not capable of… but although she was clearly the superior when it came to melee weapons, and struck their pursuer a whole bunch of times, the scarred woman was getting tired. Tired enough for the green eyed figure to drive her back across not one of the beams, but onto the one that Tonya had just reached the end of.

With the next swing of its knife spear, the metal pipe was sent flying away, leaving Christine to hold her more deeply cut arm, and then their pursuer swung his weapon low. The scarred woman let out a startled gasp when one of the knives at the end of the spear sliced across her leg, causing her to fall backwards into the Courier… making her scream as she lost her balance.

Christine fell backwards onto the platform where the control room was housed, but Tonya went over the edge of the beam, just barely managing to catch herself with one hand. The green eyed figure bypassed her completely, planting one of its feet on the beam next to the Courier's hand, while going after the scarred woman. Christine raised her arm to protect herself, only to let out a silent cry of agony when their pursuer cut her hand deeply with its weapon, before raising the spear up for the kill.

Tonya had been initially trying to grab the beam with her other hand, but instead reached a little higher, and then pulling with all her weight after bragging onto the figure's ankle. Caught off guard by this, their pursuer gurgled when it fell so that its groin hit the beam, and then it tumbled over sideways, vanishing briefly into the red cloud, before being illuminated again by the electric current from the sparking pillars below.

The green eyed figure continued to be electrocuted while Christine used her uninjured hand to help Tonya up onto the platform, and there they sat, trying to catch their breath while the electricity continued to _pop_ and _crackle_ through their pursuer below.


	13. Chapter 13 Lights in the Sky

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Thirteen: Lights in the Sky**

After spending a few minutes resting from the fight, luck finally seemed to be on Tonya's side when she and Christine discovered that the control room on the platform was exactly what they needed. Not only was it the place where the scarred woman was supposed to be, with her easily able to work out how to operate a set of controls and knobs that looked like some bizarre foreign language to the Courier, but this place was also the control board for the resort's exhaust fans.

With a touch of a button, and a brief flickering of the lights, a set of powerful fans mounted in the walls of the lowest level came to life, quickly clearing out the red smoke from below them, and giving Tonya a far easier way to get out of the building than walking the beams again. Of course, now the Courier had to go back to traveling around with Dean and the Super Mutant… not that she minded the mutant so much, but that _Ghoul_ … he made her feel even more unsafe than the bomb collars.

"Are you going to be all right here, Christine?" She asked, regretting that both their blunt weapons had fallen down below. "Anything else you need before I go?"

The scarred woman shook her head while giving a _thumbs up_ to show that she was fine, gesturing toward the door to the control station in a way that suggested that she knew how to lock it if needed. So with one last hand squeeze, they parted ways; Christine continuing to figure out the controls, while the Courier headed down the newly cleared staircase. The electrical pillars were still sparking, continuing to fry the green eyed figure who was impaled on the top of one, leaving her free to leave the building unobstructed.

The fans must have been connected to circuits outside of the facility as well, since now a lot of the red cloud had been cleared out of the streets, making them easier to navigate. However there was no sign of Dean Domino or the mutant, and with the cloud having been disbursed from the immediate area, there were a lot of ways the two of them could have gone. Tonya did not want to yell for them, since she didn't know what other hidden dangers still lurked within the resort, nor did she want to go back to the fountain to ask Elijah for help, and…

Wait a second, what was that? Over on the other side of the cobblestone street, one of the lights mounted on the wall of the buildings was blinking rapidly. Not sure what to make of this, Tonya started to walk toward it, only to have the light stop blinking while the next one farther down started up. Well, this was certainly odd, with the same thing happening when she moved toward it, making the light after that one start blinking.

Each time she moved this would happen, as if the lights on the buildings were being used to lead her somewhere, but was this strange occurrence trying to help her, or was it another one of the resort's many traps. Determined not to be caught unaware by another ambush or tripwire, but also not willing to risk ignoring something that was helping her, the Courier followed the blinking beacons, but at a safe distance as the trail moved down buildings and jumped across streets until…

"Tonya?" The surprised mutant asked when she walked around the corner. "How did you find us _all_ the way over here?"

Dean looked equally surprised to see her, and Tonya was about to point up at the blinking lights, but decided against it when she saw that they had all stopped. Instead, she reported that Christine had been put into position, and that she didn't think the green eyed figure would be bothering them any time soon. This strange round of luck didn't seem to be over yet, either, when the Courier realized where they were.

In front of the three of them was an open metal gate, and on the far wall of the small enclosure was a series of circuit breaker boxes that were all connected in sequence to some thick conduits that ran along the building's wall. So was this it? Was this the other switching station where the mutant was supposed to be during Gala? The choice to have him there made sense once Tonya saw how rusted the main levers on each box looked, meaning that incredible strength would be needed to move them.

"So this is what I'm supposed to do?" The mutant asked, looking over the setup. "Cut all the power to the resort so that this Gala thing can go off, and then what? Fumble my way to the casino in the dark?"

"What's wrong, _gorilla_ , are you scared of the dark?" The Ghoul answered. "Trust me, when Gala goes off, the only thing brighter than the lights in the sky would be if _bombs_ started falling… like last time. Oh, you should've _seen_ it; security reacted to the threat, everything went on lockdown, and… well, if I hadn't returned to my villa to grab my bowtie, the holograms inside might have massacred _me_ … along with all the other guests."

Tonya remembered what had happened at the Clinic when the security holograms that were still functioning saw her as a trespasser, but even though every bone in her body was telling her to forget all about the Sierra Madre, that damn bomb collar made it so that the Courier had no choice. They _had_ to go along with setting off Gala for the old man, and even though he had promised to let them all go afterwards, she had long ago learned not to trust that kind of man.

"Are you going to be all right here?" She asked, repeating the same thing she had said to Christine. "Can you operate the switches and everything?"

"The boxes are numbered, like this whole thing was set up just for Gala." The mutant replied. "But if Dog comes out again while you two are getting ready, I doubt that he would be able to move the switches, or even understand what he was needed to do."

"Oh, that's just _great_." Dean said, rolling his eyes. "That's just _wonderful_ , isn't it? I've been waiting for _two hundred_ years to get inside the Sierra Madre, _far_ longer than Elijah, but is it nuclear war that's going to stop me this time? No… it's this lumbering _dipshit_ who can't control his hunger for ten _God damn_ minutes."

The mutant growled while taking a step toward the Ghoul, but the Courier stepped in between them, warning them both to remember the bomb collars. With the growing tension within the group, mostly caused by Dean, the threat of all of them losing their heads was becoming less and less of a deterrent against everyone trying to kill each other, so it was more important than ever now for everyone to stay on task.

"Look, we'll scavenge some food like we did before, okay?" Tonya suggested, hoping that it would calm everyone down. "Then we'll put it right there next to the breaker boxes, and if you start to get hungry, you can eat it then."

"Just get that Ghoul away from me." The mutant warned, taking a deep, angered breath. "His presence alone makes Dog want to come out… but your plan seems solid enough."

Motioning for Dean to go with her, the Courier entered the first door that they came to, but then cried out in surprise before diving out again, sending both her and the Ghoul to the ground. She kicked the door shut with her foot, before scrambling around so that she was leaning up against the wall instead, breathing heavily while hoping that what she had seen inside had somehow not spotted her.

"What happened?" Dean demanded, getting to his feet. "What was that all about?"

"Dean, get behind something." She sternly warned. "It's one of those security holograms from the Clinic."

Tilting his head to the side for a moment, and then scoffing that there shouldn't have been any security holograms patrolling the shopping district, the Ghoul slowly cracked open the shop door just enough so that he could see through it… and then sighed deeply. The Courier gasped when he opened the door all the way and walked inside, hearing him grumble something about _female hysteria_ before coming back out with a few rusted cans of _Pork n' Beans_.

"Sweetheart, it's a good thing you're pretty." He said, heading back toward the station. "Panicking over a Vendor Hologram… what would your silent girlfriend say if she saw you now? Well… not much I suppose. Perhaps a frown."

The Ghoul started walking back over to where the mutant was waiting, and Tonya got up to follow… but then she couldn't help taking another look into the store herself. Again the glowing blue figure stood there where she had seen it earlier, but unlike the ones at the Clinic, this one didn't change color… or even react to her at all when she walked up to it. The figure of a man wearing a casual suit like on some of the pre-war magazines that she had seen was just standing there kind of… unexpectantly, still not reacting when she reached out her hand and passed it through the light.

"Well, uh… thanks." She said to it, walking back toward the door. "Stupid holograms."

Thunder crashed through the sky, making the Courier jump again just as she was leaving the small store, but this time it didn't stop with a single rumble like before. This time the thunder was longer lasting, with multiple streaks of lightning that revealed for a moment the darkest corners of the resort. That hot, humid wind was picking up again as well, making Tonya have to wipe the sweat from her forehead by the time she got back to the switching station where Dean was disrespectfully dropping the cans of food at the mutant's feet.

"There you are, you towering oaf." The Ghoul said as the mutant looked down at the cans. "You think this will keep your invisible goats from screaming at you, or whatever the _hell_ your problem is, for a while? Or should we just keep…

"What you should do is close your mouth, you withered has-been!" The mutant interrupted with a growl. "Now get out of my sight, or I'll take everything you've been saying you want to do to _Tonya_ … and do it to _you_."

Dean stopped talking in mid-sentence, apparently not wanting to see whether or not the mutant was bluffing, and stepped away from them while the Courier made sure that everything was all right with the mutant's setup now. As far as he knew, everything was ready for his part in setting off the Gala event, leaving getting the Ghoul into position the last thing to be done before it could be set off.

"All right, we're done here." Tonya said, catching up to Dean. "Now let's get you to that rooftop, or wherever it was so that…

Now the Courier's words became a startled outcry as an even brighter flash of lightning preceded an incredibly loud crash of thunder, making the two of them look up to see that a large portion of the red cloud above the resort had turned almost _black_. The Ghoul seemed nervous about this for some reason, making the Courier think that maybe she wasn't the only one around who was scared of storms, but then she understood why after the first few drops of rain fell from the sky.

"Run!" Dean yelled as small bursts of red smoke came from where the drops impacted. "We've got to get indoors!"


	14. Chapter 14 Growing Hostility

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Fourteen: Growing Hostility**

In a matter of seconds the rain went from a few droplets to a full on downpour, not only kicking up small bursts of red smoke when they hit the ground, but also burning Tonya's skin when they landed on her. Being careful not to breathe in the poisonous fumes, she kept her arms above her head in an attempt to protect her face while running off in the same direction as Dean had gone. Christine was indoors, and the mutant's station was protected by an overhang, so now it was time to worry about herself.

The Ghoul had run for the nearest door, only to find the interior of the building collapsed when he opened it, and now both of them were crying out from the burning assault. Thankfully another of the nearby buildings had a covered walkway, so the two of them ran underneath it, gaining some much needed shelter from the rain that was kicking up even _more_ of the red smoke around them. The Courier tried to wipe the burning liquid from her face, but only succeeded in hurting herself since the sleeve of her jumpsuit was still wet as well… she would just have to suffer until they found a dry haven.

"So tell me something, sweetheart." Dean said as they both leaned against the wall. "Is the Sierra Madre everything you expected? Are you glad that you came all the way out here just to rob a casino?"

"I didn't come out here to _rob_ anything." Tonya replied, trying not to cry out from the pain left over from the water. "I didn't even know this place existed until I fell into one of Elijah's traps and woke up here."

The Ghoul scoffed at this story, commenting that _sure, sure she did_ , and then taking out a cigarette from his pack since they weren't going anywhere for the moment. Dean started walking down the covered walkway while he smoked, using the pillars for cover when the wind blew some of the falling water sideways, and the Courier followed, wondering how this strange weather was possible. She figured that when the rain fell from above the red cloud, it carried some of the poison down with it when it passed through, making her overly happy when the next door that the Ghoul tried actually opened.

Inside was another small shop like the one where she had seen the Vendor Hologram, but not only did this place not have a hologram, but it had also been picked clean a long time ago by the looks of it. There was some more graffiti on the walls like she had seen around on the outside, the first one that she saw having a poorly drawn tombstone with the words _we'll be together soon_ sprayed above it. The second one, however, seemed to have scratched that one out, spraying over it with the words _never give up my share_ , with the word my being underlined.

Upstairs, though, had been left pretty well untouched, with furniture, cabinets, and even the bed still looking pristine as if the pre-war owner of the shop had lived up there to shorten his work commute. Through the window it could be seen that the pouring rain was falling everywhere, kicking up red smoke in almost constant plumes now, but so far none of was able to get into the building.

"Have a seat, beautiful." The Ghoul said, pointing to the other end of the couch as he sat down. "The rain never lasts too long around here, but it can be nasty if you're out in it for too long… don't give me that look, just sit down and give those lovely legs a rest."

It was true that Tonya was getting tired, and the couch was long enough to keep a distance between them as long as she sat on the far end, making sure to keep her eyes on him for the whole time. So she sat down, crossing her legs and hoping that the rain would stop soon… although this was probably the most comfortable piece of furniture that she had ever sat down on in her life. Of course the feeling of comfort was ruined by the way that Dean just kept staring at her with that arrogant half-smile… the same way that Aurelius of Phoenix had done.

When she had been making that delivery to the Legion in Arizona, all the Courier had wanted to do was complete the job and leave, but the commander of that fort had taken a liking to her; flirting and talking down to her like the worst of men always did. However, the difference was that Aurelius had fifty men to enforce his will, and Tonya had been terrified of ending up on a cross like those slaves… whereas Dean Domino was alone, and the Courier had no intention of being forced to be a man's _personalis meretrix_ , as Aurelius had called her, ever again.

"I know you have an _image_ to maintain with your team." Dean suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts. "But just to let you know, if you wanted to, say… fool around on that bed over there, I wouldn't tell anyone… could just be _our little secret_."

Gripping the end of the couch angrily, and wanting to kill the Ghoul with the first thing she could get her hands on, Tonya took a deep breath and tried to calm down after remembering the bomb collars on their necks. So instead of attacking him or screaming out all of the obscenities that were being considered in her mind, the Courier tried her best to be polite while replying that she was not interested… _ever_.

"You know, you're only saying that because of my looks." Dean continued with a slight laugh. "What's wrong, the burnt skin of nuclear immortality a turn off for you, princess? Back in the day I could have had a girl like you in bed with a snap of my fingers, and you would have come crawling back for more again, and again, and again."

"Wait, you think I don't like you because of the _radiation_?" Tonya replied, almost laughing herself. "I'm from _New Reno_ , Dean, I _dated_ a Ghoul for two years when I was a kid… I don't like you because you're a sexist, self-absorbed _asshole_."

She had expected him to be shocked by these words, or at least discouraged, but instead he just laughed again, taking out another cigarette and lighting it. At least the Ghoul had been right about the rain, since it started to let up about ten minutes later, giving her an excuse to get off the couch, and head back toward the stairs. However, Dean must have been right behind her, because after reaching the first floor, and pulling open the knob, Tonya was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

"You know, _Vera_ was mouthy at one time, too." The Ghoul warned. "By the time I was done with her, she was obedient _arm-candy_ who wouldn't even look me in the eyes… and by the time we're done with this whole sorry misadventure, _you'll_ be the same way."

"Get your damn hand off me!" The Courier hissed, smacking his hand away and moving outside. "All I want is to get these stupid casino doors open for Elijah, and then never have to see _either_ of your faces ever again in my life… now can we _please_ try to stay on task?"

It was taking everything she had… _everything_ not to turn around and break the Ghoul's neck, regardless of how good he had become in a fight over the past two hundred years. The only good side of all this was that once she got him into position, Tonya would be free of Dean until the Gala event was set off, and who knew… there was always the chance that he wouldn't make it to the casino afterwards.

"Maybe you should let the _man_ lead, princess." The Ghoul suggested, pushing past her. "Besides, you don't have the slightest idea where you're going."

He was right that the Courier didn't know where in all the resort the rooftop where the _audio connection manual switch_ for the resort's sound system was, but thankfully it also wasn't too far away. Going back the way they came, heading back into the courtyard and past the fountain where Vera's hologram remained standing, for a moment Tonya thought they were going back into the Residential District, when the Ghoul took a left at the last second.

"It's right up there." He said, pointing toward the roof of a three floor building. "You'll be able to see the bell tower from there as well, if the cloud is clear enough."

Whistling as he walked over to a part of the wall that had collapsed, Dean walked into the building, headed toward the stairs, and then screamed in both agony and surprise. _Clank!_ The Ghoul was in the middle of stepping over a small pile of debris, when the floor moved, sinking the teeth of a metal bear trap right into his ankle. Crying out while trying to keep his balance, Dean got twisted around on the chain that held the trap to the floor, falling on his face in a way that the Courier couldn't help but let out a surprised laugh.

"Don't you _dare_ laugh at me, you _bitch_!" The Ghoul groaned. "Get over here and help me get free, _right now_!"

As much as the Courier wanted to leave him there, and she really, really wanted to, the threat of losing her head was more important than getting revenge on this asshole. So she walked into the building, used a small piece of metal she found in the debris to check for more traps, and finally used that same metal piece to pry apart the trap. The metal was partially rusted, so working it loose required a lot of strength… but it finally opened and locked so that Dean could free himself.

"Good girl." He groaned, still managing to be a jerk in spite of the pain _and_ regaining his freedom. "Now stay back, unless you want that pretty skin of your to start glowing."

She wasn't sure what he meant by this comment, at least not until the Ghoul took what looked like another cigarette case from his other pocket. This one was metal, and shiny yet off a bit, as if it were made of steel or lead… but then the Courier realized that it had to be lead, when he took something small and metal out of the case… something that immediately started healing his leg upon being touched to it.

"There was a lot of _radioactive material_ left around after the bombs fell." Dean explained, putting it back into the case. "The resort's decontamination systems cleared away almost all of it in less than ten years, but I kept one little piece once I realized what it could do for me… sort of why I keep _you_ around, sugar-lips."

From her years traveling the Mojave, Tonya already knew that radiation could heal injured Ghouls, but it was still a little disheartening to see this Ghoul bounce back so quickly… he could have stood to suffer a _little_ bit. After thoroughly checking the rest of the room for more traps, and finding three more hidden ones, the Dean and the Courier headed upstairs in order to bring them one more step closer to setting off Gala.


	15. Chapter 15 Strike up the Band

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Fifteen: Strike up the Band**

"So… what exactly is it that you want me to do here?" Dean asked, looking at the setup in front of him. "There not really a lot going on here."

After getting to the top of the building, and climbing out onto the rooftop where Elijah said that the Ghoul was supposed to go, Tonya had to admit that she, too, was at a loss. The heavy cables that were supposed to connect the speakers on each side of the resort were there, but the control box was not, looking as if it had been simply ripped out. This left the two ends of the cables just lying there on the roof, and as Dean had said… not a lot else really going on with it.

"Well, the box used to complete the two cables, right?" She asked, looking down at them. "I suppose that they still need to be connected, then."

"Oh, that's just _swell_ , sweetheart." The Ghoul commented. "So you want me to stand here with a cable in each hand, and then what… just _clap_ them together like drum cymbals when you set off the Gala? That makes _perfect_ sense, doesn't it? And as a _bonus_ , it _also_ comes with only a slight risk of getting myself _completely electrocuted_. In other words: _Go fuck yourself, Tonya_."

Now Dean just folded his arms, turning away from the wires like a bratty kid who didn't want to eat his vegetables, appearing to forget all about little, trivial things like, oh… the _bomb_ around their necks. The Courier tried to remind him of this, but the Ghoul just didn't seem to care; not willing to risk being electrocuted when the cables went hot, or ambushed by that green eyed figure while standing out in the open, no matter _how_ sure Tonya was that their pursuer was dead.

"Look, sweet cheeks, it's not you this time." He explained, finally turning back around to face her. "You could guarantee me an iron-clad contract to play the most _high profile_ theaters in _every_ major city in the _world_ , and I _still_ wouldn't do this. But if you need it done so badly, then why don't _you_ click the wires while _I_ go set off the event."

The Courier was willing to do this if absolutely necessary, although not crazy about touching the wires herself, and it did mean that she would have a much shorter run to the Sierra Madre than Dean, who would have to go all the way up into the bell tower to throw the main switch. Upon mentioning this fact, the Ghoul suddenly didn't want her to touch the wires, claiming something about not wanting her pretty hands damaged, or some nonsense like that, but he still wouldn't hold the wires himself.

Next he suggested switching places with one of the others, but that was impossible since Christine was the only one who knew how to operate that control panel, and Tonya highly doubted that the Ghoul could work those rusted levers down in the cage. With nothing else to say, Dean folded his arms once again, turning away while the Courier balled up her fists in anger… that she was barely able to cool back down before simply throwing him off the roof.

"Dean, we're out of options, here." She said, stating the obvious. "What is it gonna take to get you to do this… beyond the threat of your head exploding."

"I want you to _beg_ me to do it." He answered with a smile, turning around again after thinking about her question. "I want you to get on your knees, bat your eyes at me, and tell me, with _lots_ of pouting, that I'm the only one _man_ enough to meet your needs… and that you're insanely jealous of your _twin sister_ Vera for keeping me all to herself."

Some of the things that he wanted didn't make any sense, for instance the fact that although Tonya looked exactly like Vera, they weren't sisters… nor did they share the same last name, and the age gap was just astounding. But without any other option but to add this to the list of things that Dean was going to pay _dearly_ for, the Courier did what he said. Of course, her performance wasn't good enough for him, and he added more to the humiliation by interrupting with critiques such as _pout more_ , followed by _stick your chest out_ , and _cry if you can_.

Eventually she got through this ridiculous routine, and the Ghoul, although having a huge smile on his face, sighed when he realized that now he had to touch the cables when it was time. He had plenty more to say about how much he had liked seeing her like that, but Tonya wasn't listening, instead looking over to the bell tower where the final switch for the Gala event was waiting for her.

"I'll skin that smug little asshole, _alive_." She grumbled to herself on the way back down through the building. "Oh, if not for this damn collar…

There was a chance for her to calm down, now that the Courier was alone again, but as great as it was to be away from Dean Domino, she was most vulnerable in this place when traveling by herself. With no one to warn her about possible traps, or navigate, it was up to her once again to make her way down the cobblestone streets, this time toward her own station. The bell tower was easy to see, being the tallest building aside from the Sierra Madre itself, so following the general direction toward it was fairly simply compared to finding the other positions.

Even though she was fairly certain that the green eyed figure was dead, having been left frying on top of those electrical pillars, Tonya continued trying to be as stealthy as possible, just in case. After all, there was no reason to go sprinting down the roads, especially since there could have been still more traps hidden around any room that she had to go through. The rain had still not started up again, either, allowing her to use the streets instead of trying to find shortcuts through the buildings, and soon she was at the base of the tower.

Passing through the stone archway into a large courtyard, Tonya started looking for a way up, but found that all of the doors, or even the rooms beyond some of the doors, had collapsed. Some old pre-war scaffolding had been left against the wall as if this place had still been under construction before the bombs fell, and although left slippery from the brief rain earlier, she was able to use it to climb up to the walkway above the courtyard. There was no graffiti in this place, as if the other teams hadn't made it this far, but there _was_ another collapsed room at the end of the walkway, forcing her to get creative.

Like the first floor, this walkway had support pillars going all the way around it, so the Courier got onto the short guardrail, and wrapped herself around one of them. Slowly climbing the pillar up to the walkway's roof, Tonya cried out in fear after almost falling off twice because of the slipperiness from the rain, but soon she was able to swing her leg up, and pull herself up onto the roof. Now as high up as all of the other buildings in the resort, the Courier felt discouraged for a moment when she saw that the tower itself still needed to be climbed… at least another three floors.

"Should have gone with the cables, Tonya." She said to herself, carefully walking across the roof to the tower. "Yep… should have gone with the cables."

About a third of the way up the tower there was a large window, but the glass was intact, so it would need to be broken before she started her climb, to reduce the risk of getting cut up. Unfortunately her wrench had been lost back at the switching station, and she had never gotten her knife back from Dean after that smoke incident in the Residential District, leaving the roof tiles as the only things around her that she could use.

Working one loose was a lot harder than she imagined, and the weight was much greater as well, proven when she tried, and failed, to throw it up at the window. Picking the heavy tile up again, this time she stepped a little bit closer, before spinning around and tossing it like she were participating in the _Hammer Throw_ event. The loss of balance that came with letting go of the tile almost made her spin herself right off the roof, but these efforts were rewarded on the fourth attempt with the sound of glass being shattered.

This was a good thing, since the Courier didn't think her arms could have done that again, and luckily she still had enough energy to climb up the wall by using hand and foot holds until reaching the window. Breaking and clearing out the rest of the glass with her arm, Tonya pulled herself up and did a kind of forward roll through the window, sighing with relief when there was solid ground to meet her, but then having to grab onto the railing to keep from falling down the broken staircase where she now found herself.

"Oh, thank God." She said to herself after reaching the top of the stairs, where a simple set of controls had been set into the viewing platform on top of the tower. "All right, now how do we set this off at the same time?"

" _Excellent, you've reached the tower_." Elijah's voice came through the small ham radio nearby. " _I was worried for a moment there with the Ghoul, but I knew you had what it takes to lead this team_."

If by lead, the old man meant the ability to completely debase and humiliate herself in order to save their lives, then sure, the Courier was a _great_ leader. That being said, Elijah was just happy that she had been smart enough to understand the blinking lights he had used to guide her earlier, and now it was finally time for the Gala event to be truly set off… a grand opening two hundred years in the making.

" _When you throw your switch, your team with receive signals to activate theirs_." The old man's voice continued. " _Once that happens, the Gala will begin, but you will have to hurry to the Sierra Madre since the doors will not stay open for long. So pull the lever, start running, and don't let anything stand in your way_."

Well, this was it… time to set off the Gala event, and finally see whether or not Elijah was simply going to kill them all once he got what he wanted. Power was going to the control board in front of her, with a slowly blinking orange light next to the lever… a light that changed to green as soon as the heavy lever was pulled into its down position, followed by the start of the grand opening celebration a few seconds later when the first firecracker exploded in the sky above the casino.


	16. Chapter 16 The Grand Opening

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Sixteen: The Grand Opening**

 _Everyone, please, may I have your attention; guests and residents of the resort alike. I ask you to step outside and look up at the night sky, it's the moment you've all been waiting for, the reason we're all here. The Gala Event, the grand opening of the Sierra Madre Casino; you are the ones who have made this momentous occasion possible, and for that we thank you, so raise your glass in celebration._

 _Let music fill the streets, as fireworks light up the sky in the promise of new beginnings to fill your hearts, no matter what your fortune, no matter what your cares… let go this night and begin again. I suggest you hurry, though; the gates of the Sierra Madre are open, but only for a brief time. After that the doors will close for the evening's festivities, and will not open again until the morning._

The voice on this new recording was the same one that had played on the broadcast that had caused Tonya to end up at the Sierra Madre in the first place, but as soon as the speech was finished, the voice was replaced with celebratory music. This remarkably uplifting tune came from everywhere around the resort at once, and an almost unbelievable amount of firecrackers started going off in the sky, illuminating the area in a vibrant display of colors while the buildings themselves went dark.

Suddenly a set of powerful searchlights came on, illuminating the previously dead looking Sierra Madre Casino, and the Courier was just about to start back down the bell tower, when she spotted something else that didn't quite inspire the same feelings. Even with the multitude of colors from the firecrackers exploding, she could see that the red sky was becoming darker, not just because the sun was setting, but because of the heavy black clouds that were forming.

"Oh, shit." Tonya whispered to herself, just as the wind started picking up. "Oh, shit, shit, shit."

With the wind cooling the air down slightly, while thunder and lightning split the sky, it could only mean that the awful, poisonous rain was about to start coming down again. Leaving the controls behind, the Courier raced back down the staircase so fast that she went right past the window that she had used to climb in. Realizing this mistake as she turned to keep going down the broken stairs, Tonya's thoughts, blood, and heart felt like they all froze at once when she found herself looking into a green light.

No, not just _any_ green light, but the twin glowing eyes of the _figure's_ mask when she nearly ran into it. For a split second the Courier's mind wondered how in the hell this monster could have survived being impaled and electrocuted on those pillars, but she wasn't curious enough to stop and ask it, either. Turning around and starting to run back up the stairs toward the window, Tonya's progress was stopped when the green eyed figure grabbed onto her with a grip so powerful that it hurt when she was pulled back toward it… being turned around to face her pursuer just in time to see its knife being stabbed toward her.

It wasn't as scary as that spear that it sometimes carried around, but the knife was _definitely_ still a threat, causing the Courier to raise her hand up reflexively to protect herself… only to scream when the blade was stabbed right through her palm. Her pursuer roughly yanked the knife out of her hand an instant later so that it could stab at her again, but this allowed Tonya to fall back onto the stairs and slam both of her feet into the green eyed figure's chest, sending it tumbling backwards down the broken stairs while she got to her feet.

Blood was dripping from her hand while Tonya ran back up to the window, and it was probably the rush of adrenaline from the sudden attack that allowed her to quickly boost herself up to and out of the tower's only exit. However, this adrenaline probably also caused her to forget how high up from the rest of the roof that the window had been, and the Courier let out a horrified shriek as she tumbled down.

 _Wham!_ Hitting the third floor roof hard on her side, Tonya tried to plant her uninjured arm to help her get up, only to realize that the roof itself was moving… wait, no, it was _she_ who was moving. On her way up the tower, she had needed to walk on the center to avoid slipping, and since she had landed nowhere _near_ the center this time, the Courier was unable to find anything to grab onto in order to keep herself from going right over the edge.

Gaining a brief reprieve from the fall that probably would have killed her, when her hand managed to grab onto the ledge of the second floor walkway, she was unable to grip it with her injured hand because of the wound, and it was only a matter of seconds before she slipped off. _Whack!_ The cobblestone street below did not show her any mercy; knocking the wind out of her, and causing Tonya's vision to blur when she landed on her back and head, leaving the Courier dazed and disoriented as the rain began to fall.

Struggling at first to take a breath, she was relieved to still be able to move, and even more so that her heavy-feeling limbs still worked when the raindrops started to kick up little bursts of the red smoke around her. Even with as much as the fall was hurting her, the burning sensation of the poisoned water hitting her skin was worse, so much in fact, that it motivated the Courier to try and find shelter.

Fireworks were still exploding in the sky above, and that music was still blasting from everywhere, meaning that there was still time for Tonya to get to the Sierra Madre, but this was difficult to do since her vision was still tilted… or maybe it was her whole body that was tilting to the side as she slowly fell over onto the ground. Landing on her hands and knees, and groaning from the constant assault of the falling water, an accidental inhalation of the red smoke was painful enough to make her vision snap back into focus, even though it also caused her to cough and wretch.

"Oh, God." She whispered after seeing the figure drop down to the ground where she had been moments ago. "Go the other way… _please_ , go the other way."

Partially hidden behind a pillar of the walkway where she had taken temporary shelter, the Courier watched with eyes wide, frightened to even take a breath for fear that her coughing would bring the green eyed figure to her, but then it turned around to face her regardless. Unaffected by the smoke filled rain, and keeping the glowing eyes of its mask aimed right at her, the pursuer made that awful gurgling sound again before drawing its knife, frightening Tonya enough to make her risk running for it.

Immediately under the assault of the now pouring rain from the moment she left cover, the Courier sprinted back down the cobblestone street, yelping and groaning while holding her arms above her head to try and protect herself. Not even bothering to look back, since she knew that the figure was quickly walking after her, she just kept running; passing the rooftop where Dean had been stationed, yet not surprised at all that the Ghoul was no longer there.

By this point the fumes from the red smoke were getting to her to the point where she was on the verge of passing out, or vomiting, or maybe both, forcing her to take shelter inside the building where she had left Dean; falling to her hands and knees the moment she stumbled through the door, and vomiting anyway. At least the air within the building was breathable, but there wasn't much time to enjoy it, with her being on a time limit for both the casino _and_ the figure chasing her.

"Okay, you son of a bitch." Tonya whispered, spotting the traps on the floor that had gotten Dean. "Let's see how you like _this_."

Now that there wasn't a screaming victim trapped inside them, the bear traps were easy to detach from the tether that held them to the floor, and the Courier had just finished unlocking both of them when the door behind her was shoved open. It was the green eyed figure, walking in with its knife held up in an attacking position, but this advance was halted when she slid the first trap across the floor toward it.

 _Clack!_ The rusted metal trap snapped shut as soon as her pursuer's foot hit the pressure plate, and the figure gurgled in an almost surprised fashion while looking down at the spikes now stabbing into its ankle. This single moment of distraction was all that Tonya needed, so she stood up with the trap raised above her head, and slammed it down on top of its hood, making the green eyed figure gurgle more loudly when the spiked stabbed into both sides of its head.

There was no time to enjoy how disoriented and awkward the figure looked as it stumbled into the wall, since the Sierra Madre wouldn't stay open forever, so the Courier pushed her pursuer out of the way, resulting in her crying out again when a wild swing of its knife tore into the side of her jumpsuit… and across her ribs underneath. It wasn't a deep cut, at least it didn't feel that way, but it had been enough to start a flow of blood down the white material by the time that she stumbled back out into the rain.

Breathing as little as possible and keeping her head as high above the little bursts of red smoke as she could, the stab through her hand made it hard to keep her arms up to protect her head, as did the cut across her ribs, which got rained on each time her arms went up. Well, the music was still playing, and even more firecrackers were going off in the sky when she looked up, but then suddenly the ground was no longer there as Tonya reached the top of the stone staircase she had come up earlier.

Making a desperate grab for the guardrail but missing completely, the Courier's back hit the stairs first, followed by every other part of her body in a very painful sequence that came from tumbling all the way down the stairs. In another rough landing, this time right on her face, Tonya got a full breath of the red cloud, choking her to the point where she reflexively tried to breathe again, between coughing fits, which only made things worse.

The worst of it, though, was that she must have twisted her ankle while falling down the stairs, because Tonya couldn't get up. She made it up to her hands and knees, but the lack of air, along with the burning from the cloud, made her fall back down. There was no strength left in her arms, and it didn't help when the Courier started to panic; franticly trying to crawl down the street without much success… and then freezing up when the figure appeared up ahead.

No, wait… it wasn't the green eyed figure that was running toward her… it was Christine. The scarred woman was sprinting through the rain with a hell of a lot more discipline and pain endurance than Tonya had been, seeming to ignore the effects of the water all together, even though her skin was reddening. Changing direction as soon as she spotted the Courier, Christine ran over to her, bent down to grab her, and then put Tonya over her shoulder as if she weighed nothing.

To be fair, the Courier was a slender thing, but she hadn't noticed how in shape the scarred woman was until right then when she was able to feel how tight the muscles were in her arms and back. Of course, those hard shoulders were also killing Tonya's stomach, since she was painfully bounced on it with each step that Christine took on the way past the fountain, and toward the open gates that led up to the Sierra Madre.


	17. Chapter 17 Sierra Madre

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Seventeen: Sierra Madre**

Tonya wasn't sure what had hurt more, trying to run by herself or being carried by Christine, who was still running as they passed through the elaborate gates. Heading up the cobblestone path that led right to the casino's double front doors, the scarred woman ignored the poisoned rain and its red smoke as best she could, although Christine was starting to cough and stumble a bit by the time they went up the entry stairs and passed through.

As if it had been waiting for them, the golden colored doors closed only a few seconds after they had made it inside, followed by what sounded like a dozen heavy locks clicking shut, leaving them trapped inside the entryway between the sets of external and internal doors. The falling rain could still be heard, falling even harder now outside as Christine gently set the Courier down on her feet, and the best news of all was that none of the red cloud was getting through.

"I'm okay, Christine." Tonya groaned when the scarred woman touched the wound on her ribs and hand. "I'm okay… you saved me… thank you."

Christine smiled just a bit, hugging her but then stopping when the Courier groaned again, and switching to a kind of awkward pat on the head that made both of them laugh… the scarred woman silently while Tonya's sounded pained. There was still blood running from the cut across her ribs, as well as where the green eyed figure had stabbed her through the hand, so Christine looked around the entry room, but didn't seem to find what she was looking for, so she took the Courier by the other hand, and led her through the interior doors into some kind of lobby.

The first thing that Tonya saw upon entering the room was a large painted portrait hanging on the wall above a smaller version of the fountains outside, featuring a wealthy looking man and woman holding hands, while the written words along the bottom read _BEGIN AGAIN_. She had only noticed this because one of the sets of emergency lights on the walls was shining right onto it, while the few other sets of lights that still worked were giving off just enough light for them to see the basic features of the lobby.

At the bottom of the short stairs was a reception desk like the kind the Courier had seen in lots of old hotels, and there was a light coming from the screen of its computer terminal, meaning that it could probably be used. Aside from that, there were a couple doors on the adjoining walls, and a curved staircase going up to a second level of the lobby, where a couple more doors were visible in the emergency lighting.

"No argument here." Tonya said, reacting to Christine suddenly pointing to her wounds and making a gesture that suggested bandaging. "Could you… help me down the stairs?"

The scarred woman gently put her arm around the Courier's waist, pulling her close as the two of them started down the short stairs… but now that the adrenaline from her fight with the green eyed figure was fading, Tonya was having a lot more trouble. She found herself having to lean heavily on the scarred woman, nearly causing them to fall from a sudden feeling of weakness in her legs, but then Christine just picked her up into her arms, and carried her down the rest of the way.

"You are… _really_ strong." The Courier commented as they reached the bottom. "So, did…

An alarm interrupted her words, causing both of them to look around as the noise echoed from everywhere at once, and then there was a kind of strange pulse of heat and pressure through the air, making Tonya's head spin while everything got incredibly bright. Christine must have been effected to, since the scarred woman dropped her onto the floor before falling over and sinking down the short stairs' handrail.

Unable to move as the brightness became unbearable, and the pressure made her feel so dizzy, the Courier tried to fight it… but only succeeded in sitting up a couple inches, before passing out. Well, she _must've_ passed out, because when her eyes opened again, the pressure and alarms were gone, replaced by what must have been the lobby's main lighting, because now she could see all of the elaborate designs of the room in great detail.

The walls were a mixture of diamond pattern black and white tiles on the bottom, with tan painted concrete at the top, while the floors were covered with a thick, faded red carpet that also went up the stairs. The guardrails on the stairs and balcony above were the same golden colored metal as the doors, shaped into elaborate patterns, and the whole place in general was so well preserved that it really _did_ look like no one had ever been inside before.

"Christine?" She asked, scooting over to the scarred woman, who was just sitting up. "Christine, are you all right?"

Christine nodded that she was, after rubbing her eyes and looking around for a moment in awe of their new surroundings… but then she put up her hands to make Tonya stop moving. Pointing to her still bleeding side, and then touching the Courier's hand, the gestures that she was making with her arms and face showed that she didn't want Tonya hurting herself by moving more than she had to.

"What happened?" A deep voice asked from behind, making them both gasp. "What was that blast?"

"Dog?!" Tonya exclaimed, groaning and stopping moving after trying to get up. "Oh, my God, you made it!"

Aside from his annoyance at being referred to as Dog, the Super Mutant appeared to have reached the Sierra Madre after all, meaning that he was safe from the green eyed figure outside… who was probably pretty angry about having a bear trap slammed down on the top of its head. Wait a second… Christine and the mutant were both there, but where was Dean Domino? The Courier turned her head to look around for him, but the Ghoul was nowhere to be found… not that this was a _big loss_ , or anything.

" _Hello_?!" A static-laced voice echoed, sounding like it was coming through an intercom. " _God damn walls, interfering with the collar's signal… did you make it inside?! Did any of you make it inside the Madre_?!"

It was Elijah, speaking to them just as he had done outside at the fountain, but he also seemed to realize that the team had no way of responding, so he started talking to himself as if reading off the results of some kind of security scan. According to him, emergency power had been cut off, replaced by the auxiliary systems, and that only happened when the Sierra Madre's security systems detected movement.

" _My God, you've done it_!" The old man's voice exclaimed. "You're inside… the casino's waking up… it's responding to your presence, but something is still interfering with the collar's signal. Damn security sweep must've damaged the antennas; nothing foreign is allowed within the Madre, you see, but be careful because the collars could explode from the slightest stimulus, now."

Elijah continued to ramble something about them needing to find the main power switch and bring the casino fully online, but Tonya was no longer listening to him. Instead, her attention was called to the scarred woman, who had a wide smile when she shook the Courier's shoulder, patting her own neck while tilting her head really far back. It took Tonya a moment to realize what Christine was trying to tell her, and then she gasped, slowly reaching up to touch her own neck and finding… that the bomb collars were _gone_.

"That's why he can't detect us." The Courier said with her own smile forming. "Oh, Christine, I could _kiss_ you… help me up, let's get out of here."

Figuring that it would be easy for the two of them to escape the casino and resort before the old man even realized they had left, the scarred woman held up her hands in a signal for Tonya to stop, and this next past was a little difficult for her to understand. First Christine got an angry look on her face, using her hands to wrinkle her forehead, and then gesturing down from her chin as if she had a beard. The last gesture that she made was easy, that of her shooting a rifle, and suddenly Tonya understood.

"You… you don't _want_ to leave?" She said, putting her hand on the scarred woman's shoulder. "Are you saying that we need to kill Elijah first?"

Nodding her head and smiling, Christine leaned in and gave the Courier a quick kiss on the cheek, before pointing to both of them, making the face like the old man again… doing a kind of sneaking gesture… and then acting like she was stabbing something. So… she wanted them to sneak up on Elijah and what, stab him to death? Wait, more gestures, now pointing to the mutant, and using her arms like she was hugging something while… biting it?

"I think I understand." Tonya said after thinking for a second. "You want all of us to sneak up on Elijah, and then Dog can hold him down, while you and me stab him to death… and then you want Dog to _eat_ him?"

Christine smiled even bigger now, patting the Courier on the head while the mutant remarked that it didn't seem like a _bad_ plan… and that he was also getting hungry. God, the last thing they needed was the Dog side of his personality coming out again, and one of the nearby doors had the word _RESTAURANT_ painted over the top of it… maybe there would be a first aid kit or something in there as well, if the whole casino was as well preserved as the lobby had been.

"I think we could all use some food, huh?" Tonya suggested, feeling her stomach rumble so loudly that it hurt a little. "Feels like I haven't eaten in days."

The mutant seemed to agree, already making his way toward the Restaurant door by the time that Christine got up, and this time when the scarred woman picked her up, the Courier put her arms around her neck so that it would be easier to balance. Hopefully there would be preserved food inside the Restaurant, _and_ some first aid supplies, since now that they were free of the collars, Tonya wanted to be able to move quickly for whatever course of action the three of them decided on.


	18. Chapter 18 Cantina Madrid

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Eighteen: Cantina Madrid**

Ever since leaving New Reno at the age of fifteen to deliver her very first package to a place called _Hopeville_ for the Mojave Express, Tonya had been to a thousand unbelievable places, and seen countless unbelievable things… none of which compared to the awe and splendor of _Cantina Madrid_ , the Restaurant inside of the Sierra Madre Casino. Like the lobby, the place was untouched, with a dining room even fancier than the table of NCR President Aaron Kimball in Shady Sands, and a kitchen that was so clean that it was almost sterile.

The cabinets and store rooms were absolutely filled with pre-war foods of all kinds, everything from run of the mill Cram potted meat, to frozen fruit of all kinds, and more than a dozen drinks that the Courier had never even _heard_ of before. Everyone in the Mojave Wasteland either drank _Nuka Cola_ or _Sunset Sarsaparilla_ , depending on preference, but this place had more than ten different colored variations of Nuka Cola, as well as something called _Vim_ … not to mention the coffee and alcoholic drinks.

"What is… _Nuka Cola Dark_?" The Super Mutant asked, picking up a bottle. "And oh… _BlamCo Mac &Cheese_, mmmm."

Grunting with hunger, and grabbing a whole stack of different foods, the mutant went back into the dining room where he sat down at one of the tables for his feast, but Tonya and Christine were only able to each grab one small thing for themselves while searching for a first aid kit. There was a large one mounted on the wall inside the kitchen, way back near the freezer, making the temperature noticeably colder as the scarred woman sat Tonya down, before pulling up a chair right in front of her.

Opening the nearby box, Christine took out a syringe that was labeled _Med-X_ , and after wincing when the needle was stuck into her arm, the Courier let out a sigh of relief as the pain was wiped from her body in only a few seconds. She also started to feel numb, and her fingers were becoming harder to move… along with the rest of her. There was still some lingering pain, though, so she started to reach for the next syringe, only to have Christine smack her hand.

"Okay, I get it." Tonya said after interpreting the scarred woman's gestured. "Don't want to get addicted to this stuff… okay."

Although not entirely clear of what each movement meant, the slowing down patting over her heart and moving head back and forth like she was out of it, told the Courier that an overdose was a bad idea… as well as mock shivering and what looked like pain for she guessed… _withdrawal_? After that, the scarred woman cleaned her hand and side with alcohol, before gently wrapping her hand with a bandage, and putting a kind of adhesive patch over the wound on her ribs that had the word _Buffout_ written on the label that had to be removed before applying.

Tonya hadn't been too crazy about the idea of taking down the top of her jumpsuit for the treatment, even though she and Christine were both women, but the Med-X had made her fingers so sluggish that she was only able to zip her jumpsuit back up halfway, when the scarred woman started looking at her funny. She did this for a moment, and then got up, returning with a small framed picture that had been on the nearby desk… which turned out to be a signed photograph of Vera Keyes.

Christine looked back and forth at the picture and her several times, before setting the frame down next to her, and then reaching up to undo Tonya's hair. Just as Dean Domino had instructed her to do when they first met, the scarred woman moved the Courier's hair so that it was stacked up on top of her head, before smiling and pointing to the picture. As weird as it was to see what looked like a picture of herself all _gussied_ up from two hundred years ago, Tonya had to admit that the resemblance was amazing.

"Dean said the same thing." She explained, trying to put her hair back once Christine was done. "I don't know, maybe she's my great, great, great, something or other, or… aw, damn it."

The effects of the Med-X was starting to wear off, since she hadn't been given the entire syringe, but the Courier's fingers were still too numb to put her hair back up into her preferred _Wendy the Wielder_ style. So the scarred woman leaned back in to help her, gently tying her hair back into place around itself, and then giving Tonya a kiss on the cheek… followed by another one, this time on the lips. This caught the Courier off guard, and she pulled her head back a bit, only to have Christine pull her back by putting her hands on her cheeks.

Oh hell, why not? Tonya thought as they kissed again, this time with her responding; Christine was nice enough, and had saved her life a couple times, and… well, it wasn't like the Courier hadn't been with a woman before… at least not since making a delivery to a place called _Junktown_ a couple years before. The scarred woman suddenly pulled Tonya onto her chair so that the Courier was kind of half-straddling her as their kissing continued, and Christine had just started to kiss her neck, when a loud _banging_ sound interrupted them.

"What was that?!" Tonya asked as they looked around. "It almost sounded like…

 _Bam! Bam! Bam!_ The banging sound was repeated, as of something blunt being hit against something metal, and after a few more hits the two women realized that it was coming from a nearby door. Not the freezer door, but a kind of large metal hatch that looked like something that the maintenance workers would have used. Apart from the banging sound, they could hear someone walking around inside, and the Courier rolled her eyes when she figured that it must have been Dean.

"And here I thought we were rid of him." Tonya said, making Christine smile as they got up from the chair. "I suppose we'll have to let him out."

She started toward the maintenance door, only to have the scarred woman grab her by the arm and pull her back… before zipping Tonya's jumpsuit up the rest of the way, which would have been really awkward to have down around that stupid Ghoul. Christine gave her one more kiss before heading for the maintenance door, making the Courier giggle, and then they both braced themselves for a continuation of his nonsense, before pulling the door open… and receiving the fright of their lives.

Instead of Dean Domino walking out in his old tuxedo and saying something ignorant to them, what the two women saw inside the darkness was a pair of glowing green eyes, followed by a gurgling sound as the figure thrust its spear toward them. Christine tried to move out of the way, but two of the knives tied to the end of its spear managed to penetrate her abdomen, making her silently scream in pain, especially when it was yanked back out.

"Christine!" Tonya yelled, grabbing a large frying pan. "Get away from her, you bastard!"

 _Clang! Clang!_ Rushing forward, and repeatedly bashing the green eyed figure over the head, the Courier started screaming for the Super Mutant, knowing damn well that she would never be able to beat her pursuer on her own. With the next hit, she shoved the pan against its mask, using her body to force the green eyed figure back against the counter, but then it simply shoved her back, making Tonya cry out as she found her back hitting the corner of the other counter behind her, and then having the pan knocked out of her hands with the next swing of the figure's spear.

Using the pole of its spear to press down on the Courier's neck, the green eyed figure forced her down so that she was lying back onto the counter, and then it raised the weapon up for the kill, only to have it grabbed by Christine. The scarred woman pulled their pursuer off balance, making it stumble as they moved away from Tonya, but then the green eyed figure recovered, quickly twisting the spear around until it was ripped out of her hands. Trying to ignore the pain from her now bleeding stomach as best she could, Christine reached across the counter, and interrupted the figure's next stab attempt by smashing it in the face with a toaster.

Doing little more than making their pursuer hesitate, the figure struck Christine with the blunt end of the spear to knock her off balance, and was about to stab her again, when Tonya leapt onto it back, looping her arm around its neck for a _sleeper hold_. This allowed the scarred woman to wrestle the spear back away from it, and then force both it and the Courier back against the far wall when she stabbed the weapon into its chest.

"Stab him again, Christine!" Tonya yelled, further restraining it by looping one of her legs around its own. "Dog! Dog, where are you?!"

Grunting from her wound as she yanked the spear from its chest, Christine raised the weapon over her head to stab the green eyed figure in the face, when it suddenly pulled its small knife from the sheath, and buried it into her stomach all the way to the hilt. Tonya screamed as the scarred woman slowly sank to the floor, tears filling her eyes as she tightened her grip on the figure's neck, only to have it step forward… and then ram her backwards into the wall.

 _Bam! Bam! Bam!_ Three hits like that was enough to make the Courier fall off, and now the figure was turning around to attack her, when there was a flash of movement that carried her pursuer away. The mutant had finally showed up, spilled food and drink all over his face and torso while picking up the figure over his head, and then tossing it across the room with an angry roar. The green eyed figure flew into a set of pipes, causing a _hissing_ sound when one of the valves was broken off… a sound that grew even more intense when the charging mutant used all of his weight to ram the figure back into the pipes when they collided.

"Tonya, get the mute out of here!" The mutant growled, bashing the figure's head into the pipes, breaking them further and making more noise. "I'm going to take this thing apart like a little rag doll!"

Promising that she would come back as soon as Christine was safe, Tonya helped her wounded friend to her feet, and together the two of them stumbled their way out of the kitchen, back into the dining area where the mutant's stack of food had been knocked over when he ran to help them. She helped the scarred woman sit down on one of the chairs, then kissed her on the forehead and said she had to go back to both help the mutant _and_ get the first aid box, but the Courier was just passing into the kitchen area when a strange scent reached her nose.

"Gas?" She asked, noticing the fumes that were coming from the pipes while the mutant continued to pummel their pursuer. "Natural gas? Oh no… Dog, stop, that's a _gas line_! Dog don't make a…

 _BOOM!_ After beating the green eyed figure so that it was down on its knees, the mutant had picked up a metal microwave oven, and slammed it down onto the figure's head just as Tonya had been screaming for him to not make a spark. Unfortunately, the corner of the microwave struck a pipe, causing a single spark that ignited the gas in an explosion that sent the Courier flying backwards into a bunch of tables.


	19. Chapter 19 Into the Tampico

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Nineteen: Into the Tampico**

One second Tonya was standing in the doorway of the Cantina Madrid's kitchen, screaming to the mutant not to make a spark because of the gas leak, and then everything went white. Her feet left the floor when the gas ignited, filling the kitchen with light and heat while she was thrown backwards, crashing right through a couple of the tables, and rolling to a very hard stop against the far wall. The Courier wasn't sure how long she had been lying there, when her eyes finally opened again, but the burning wreckage of the kitchen had completely collapsed… leaving no sign of the green eyed figure _or_ the Super Mutant.

"Christine!" Tonya managed to weakly call as she tried to get up. "Christine, are you all right?!"

Coughing and her head spinning as she tried to get up to her knees, the Courier saw that the room was filling with black smoke from the spreading fire, but also that the scarred woman was no longer seated at the table where she had left her. The dizziness got worse when Tonya tried to stand up, so for now she just crawled across the floor to where Christine was lying on her back. The scarred woman was trying to scoot away from the spreading flames, but not getting very far thanks to the knife in her stomach, but thankfully the sprinklers on the ceiling came on a few seconds later.

"It's okay, Christine." The Courier said, putting her arms around her as soon as she was close enough. "The water still works, it'll put out the fire… we're safe, okay?"

But the scarred woman frantically shook her head no, pointing toward the floor, and making Tonya gag when she caught the first whiff of that familiar, burning scent. It was a scent that had twice crippled her while out in the resort, but it made no sense for her to be smelling it inside the Sierra Madre, unless… oh God, the Courier thought as a knot formed in her stomach… it's in the _sprinklers_!

"Come on, Christine!" She yelled, roughly pulling the scarred woman to her feet. "Christine! We have to get out of here! Come on!"

It was the red cloud, being carried into the casino through the water pipes, and then being kicked up from the droplets just like the rain had been doing outside. Both women were already coughing and feeling the burning on their skin by the time Christine had been brought to a standing position, since Tonya wasn't strong enough to simply carry her out like the scarred woman had done for her during the Gala, and now they tried to get out before being overwhelmed by the red smoke that was already rising.

Breathing became easier once they made it back to the lobby, but with as much water as was being pumped out by the sprinklers, it was only a matter of time before it flowed out of the restaurant, and into where they were now. The doors to the restaurant had rubber seals all the way around them, so the Courier had Christine lean against one of the nearby pillars, while she went back to pull them shut. At first they didn't move no matter how hard she pulled, and the cloud carrying water just got closer… until she realized that the built in doorstops were locked into place.

Kicking them up with her boot as fast as possible, Tonya pulled the doors shut just before the pooling water reached them… and the water didn't come through. Unfortunately, the seals on the doors were small, there was no way to lock them without some kind of key, and from what she could hear through the door, the sprinklers were still going. That meant that it was only a matter of time before the rising water pushed the doors open, and the cloud entered the lobby… but where could they go?

"Upstairs." The Courier said, putting Christine's arm over her shoulder. "I know the stairs are hard, but we need to get through one of the doors up there… there's no _way_ the sprinklers can have _that_ much water in them."

Working together, the two women slowly managed to get up the curved staircase, with some added help from the scarred woman holding onto the guardrail, and once at the top there were two doors to choose from. The first was an elevator that had the word _SUITES_ painted above, but the lights on the panel were off, leaving only the other door far to the left, which had the word _THEATER_ over the top. So far the water hadn't pushed open the restaurant doors open, but they didn't want to wait until they did, so Tonya helped Christine over to the Theater door, which was also thankfully unlocked.

Maybe they should have started with bringing the casino's main power back online, since maybe some defective auxiliary circuits were causing those sprinklers to keep going off like that, but the last thing Tonya wanted to do was further Elijah's plans, especially now that their collars had been removed. Either way, she and Christine were safe from the poison carrying water, so the Courier needed to find another first air box. There was no way she was going to try and remove the knife without more Med-X, nor without something to stop the bleeding afterwards, but… but where was the damn box?

Passing the ticket booth, and heading down a dimly lit corridor toward another set of double doors, Tonya saw more of those posters advertising performances by Vera Keyes and Dean Domino… although it was hard to see the pre-was man with curly hair and a mustache as the Ghoul she had been forced to work with. Apparently back then there had been a lot of people booked to play at the Sierra Madre, including other musicians named _Danny Parker_ with something called a _Modern Jazz Group_ , and _Joey Baxter_ with his ten piece orchestra.

The double doors opened up into a vast rounded chamber, where a performing stage was in the center against some heavy curtains, and a few dozen tables like the ones she had seen in the Cantina Madrid were set up in a half-circle around it. The words _DEAN DOMINO_ were in lights against the back wall of the stage, but that wasn't what the Courier was paying attention to at the moment… the first aid box on the wall behind the snack bar opposite of the stage was far more important than why in the hell anyone would have wanted to see that Ghoul perform… even before he was a Ghoul.

"Okay, just sit here, Christine." She said, trying to be gentle with helping the scarred woman sit at one of the tables. "I found the box, I'll be right back."

Going over to the snack bar by herself would have been a lot easier than trying to walk Christine around each of the tables in the way, so Tonya moved as fast as she could; running around the snack bar, and opening the box. There was so much stuff that she needed, Med-X, those Buffout patches, bandages… but instead of sorting through them, the Courier simply pushed off with her leg, and pulled the whole box off the wall.

"I'm coming, Christine!" She announced, coming back around the snack bar. "Hold on, this will make you…

Wait, something was wrong; instead of looking relieved or simply in pain, the scarred woman's eyes were wide, one arm waving her off, while frantically shaking her head no, and Tonya didn't understand what was happening until she heard the gunshot. Bang! A bullet slammed into the first aid box, knocking it out of her hands, and sending the contents spilling out across the floor, while the Courier reflexively ducked down under the nearest table.

"How was _that_ for an entrance, honey bun?" Dean's voice asked. "First rule of show biz, you know… make a good entrance, and the crowd will fall at your feet."

It was him, Dean Domino standing there in the middle of the stage as if about to make a performance, but instead of a microphone in his hand, it was a semi-automatic pistol… a pistol that was aimed at the helpless and wounded Christine. Part of the Courier wondered how he had made it to the Madre, and also why he hadn't been stunned inside the lobby like everyone else, but his collar was gone, so… no, there were more important matters at hand.

"Dean, what the _hell_ are you doing?!" Tonya yelled, peeking out just enough to see him. "Christine's hurt, and I have to help…

 _Bang!_ The Ghoul pulled the trigger, making the scarred woman silently cry out as the bullet tore into her arm, and making the Courier fall silent as well. She had known that Dean was an asshole, but why on Earth was he treating _Christine_ like that? The Ghoul started talking again, saying something about a _captive audience_ , followed by a short laugh, and then ordering Tonya to come out with her hands on top of her head, unless she wanted to see _the mute_ die.

"There's a good girl." Dean said as she did what he wanted. "See how easy things can go when you smile more and talk less? You're not _smiling_ , sweetheart… there you go… now, seeing as I only need _one_ of you little street-walkers, if you want the mute to live, then you better get on your knees and _beg_ me for her life."

"Dean, please don't shoot her, _please_!" Tonya begged, immediately dropping to her knees. "Look, the collars are _gone_ , there's no reason for us to stay here any longer, so just… let me help Christine, and we can all go home… I'm _begging_ you."

She hoped and prayed with all her might that the Ghoul would see reason, but instead he scoffed at her pleas, and started ranting on about she and Elijah just being _tourists_ , while he had been waiting to get inside the Sierra Madre for two centuries. It was _his_ , he claimed, he had _earned_ the right to plunder its treasures, and if the bombs hadn't fallen on opening night, Sinclair's vault would have been his before that old man had even been born.

"Your green-eyed friend was supposed to take care of one of you as well, not just the mutant." Dean continued. "That's why I let him in the emergency maintenance passage… poor man always was punctual, even _before_ the cloud turned him into that… _thing_."

So wait, what? The Courier couldn't believe that the Ghoul had let their pursuer into the casino to come after them; almost worse than discovering that they could have escaped the same way it had come in… if the restaurant hadn't exploded. Okay, Tonya, focus on the positives, she thought to herself: The green eyed figure was gone, and Christine was still alive… now all she had to do was make sure she _stayed_ that way.

"This was supposed to be _easy_ , you know." Dean explained, taking the cigarette out of his mouth to blow out some smoke. "But how was I supposed to that the damn Auto-Doc was going to malfunction, huh? Christine was supposed to be the key to everything, but now I have to start the process all over."

"Dean, I don't know what you're talking about." Tonya answered, remaining on her knees. "But _please_ … I will do _anything_ you want, just please let me help her… I'll do _anything_."

All his talk about the scarred woman being the key to something didn't make any sense, but it _did_ explain how she had ended up in the Clinic, if the Ghoul had somehow ordered the Dog personality of the mutant to put her there. But what had been the point of operating on her vocal cords in the first place? What was the point of _any_ of this? Dean and Elijah just wanted whatever was hidden in this place so badly that they were willing to anything in order to take it… actually making the Courier wish that the collars were still on.

"Yes, sugar-lips, you _will_ do anything I want." The Ghoul said with a sinister grin. "You, Tonya Greene, yes _you_ , are now the key to everything… or at least you _will_ be soon. But as I said… I only need _one_ of you."

 _Bang!_


	20. Chapter 20 Curtain Call

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty: Curtain Call**

When seeing someone who they care about get shot, most people imagined screaming, or flying into a rage, but when Tonya Greene saw Christine fall backwards out of the chair after Dean's bullet struck her in the head, she just kind of froze in place with her jaw hanging open. That knot had reformed in the Courier's stomach, and her mouth ran dry when she saw that the scarred woman was no longer moving or breathing, but there was _plenty_ of water coming out of her widened eyes.

"Aw, what's the matter, pet? Did I shoot your girlfriend?" Dean asked, faking that he was sad. "You know, this wouldn't have happened if she had just died in the _restaurant_ like a good girl."

Angrily shifting her gaze back to the Ghoul standing on the stage, Tonya jumped to her feet with the intent of climbing up there to tear him apart with her bare hands, only to _yelp_ and fall on her rear after another bullet from Dean's pistol struck the floor between her feet. Bang! Bang! Two more bullets hitting the floor between her knees now, forcing her to scoot backwards to get away from them, resulting in the Courier ending up hiding underneath the same table she had been before.

"You stupid, selfish _bastard_!" Tonya screamed, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I'll _kill_ you for this, Dean Domino!"

"No, my love, actually, you won't." The Ghoul replied, walking back toward the curtains and hitting a switch. "Hear that _click_ just now, Tonya? That's the sound of _holographic emitters_ warming up, and in about thirty seconds, you're going to find yourself surrounded by _casino security_."

Continuing this taunt, Dean explained how he had locked the doors of the theater while the Courier had been busy with her girlfriend, and if she thought that she could get away, then she was as delusional as Sinclair was for building an entire casino and resort for Vera Keyes… thinking that Vera had loved him when she had belonged to Dean the entire time. Apparently the two of them had conspired to rob the casino's vault by working together on opening night, but those damn bombs just had to fall… causing the Ghoul to trail off for a moment.

"Where are those _damn_ holograms?" Dean grumbled to himself, looking around. "They won't attack me because I'm a registered _guest_ of the Madre, but you and Elijah… nothing but _tourists_ , like I said… _trespassing tourists_. Don't be scared, princess, I set them to _non-lethal_ , so they won't kill you, just render you unconscious… after all, I still need you for my plan… once I'm done _screwing_ you until you can't walk, that is."

Tonya had a reply to that last statement, and it was a good one too, but she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of blue glowing security holograms like the ones she had seen at the Clinic. There were three of them, appearing at different points around the theater, and each one turned yellow the moment they faced where the Courier was trying to hide. Dean had already told her that the doors were locked, so she was looking around for another exit, when the holograms turned red.

"Oh, fuck!" Tonya exclaimed, scrambling out from under the table as the holograms put their hands on top of their heads.

The first blast of red energy that was launched from their heads struck the table, leaving a black scorch mark as it was overturned by the force. The next one flew right past her head, followed by another hitting a chair when she tried to change directions, forcing the Courier to take the only shelter that she could see… by running for the snack bar, knocking everything down as she dove over the top of it, and very ungracefully crashing to the floor behind it.

Rolling over to upright herself, Tonya scooted over so that her back was against the snack bar, while keeping as low of a profile as she could, while watching the reflections of the red holograms as they walked around looking for her. However, about ten seconds later their color changed back to yellow just like at the Clinic, and after maybe ten more seconds of not being able to find her… they turned blue in order to resume what she guessed was a normal patrol.

"What? Are you _serious_ right now?" Dean could be heard exclaiming in disbelief. "She's over _there_ , behind the _snack bar_ , she's _right behind the snack bar_ , you God damn pre-war junk."

The Ghoul had said that he couldn't kill her for some reason, so there was no risk of him coming over to shoot her personally, and the holograms were no longer interested, giving the Courier time to use the mirror up above to find a way out. Aside from the main doors and the stage itself, there was only a single door available, one back around the far side of the stage where it was almost hidden from public view… but was it locked or open?

Well, she couldn't just stay there forever, in case one of the holograms checked back there on its patrol, so Tonya waited until she saw that all three of them were facing away from her, before getting up and rushing back around the snack bar. Dean started yelling for the holograms to shoot her, but apparently they only responded to what they could perceive on their own, because she was almost past the stage by the time she heard that hollow _whoosh_ that came along with the holograms changing back to yellow.

Not even bothering to look back, the Courier just kept running; slamming herself into the door just as the holograms were heard changing to red… but it didn't open. There wasn't quite a curse word strong enough to express what she was feeling at that moment, but at least the Ghoul on stage was happy judging by his laughter… until the first shot fired by the holograms went right past her head, hitting the door with enough force to break it free of the lock.

"No!" Dean yelled as she ran through the door, slamming it shut again once she was through. "You can't hide in there forever, beautiful… the holograms will find you eventually!"

She didn't know whether or not the holograms could come back into the long hallway in which she found herself, nor did she want to wait around to find out. What she needed was a place to hide, at least until she could find a way to disable the holograms, or simply deal with the Ghoul and be done with it. He was going to _pay_ for what he had done to Dog and Christine, but not while security was protecting him, so Tonya tried the first door that she came to… a door that had the words _VERA KEYES_ written in big letters inside of a gold star.

Almost forgetting to close and lock it again after passing through, since she was just so happy that it was unlocked, the Courier corrected this mistake and was looking for something she could hide behind… when she realized where she was. Only now registering that Vera Keyes had been written on the door, she figured that this must have been her dressing room, since the starlet's clothes, makeup, and photographs were all over the place.

What caught her attention the most was a small photograph of Vera standing with the pre-war version of Dean Domino, but with as happy as the would be Ghoul looked with his big grin, Vera looked like she wanted to run away, regardless of the forced smile that was on her face. She and Dean must have been booked to play the theater on the same night, Tonya thought as she set the picture down… and then she saw herself in the full length mirror, and got an idea that made her smile.

The Courier's hands were almost shaking as she undid her hair, and then unzipped her jumpsuit before getting out of it, next grabbing the first hanging set of clothes that she found; a beautiful black dress with red trim that showed a lot of cleavage and her entire left leg once it was on. Now going over to the vanity table and sitting down, Tonya grabbed the dozen bobby pins that were sin the first drawer, and started putting up her hair, ending with it in a kind of beehive style like on the posters.

" _You can pass for her as long as you keep your mouth shut_." She mocked Dean's words while putting on some bright red lipstick. " _Smile more and talk less_."

Oh God, not _heels_ , Tonya thought when she found the shoes that went with the outfit. It had been a very _long_ time since the Courier had _any_ reason to wear heels, and yep, they were just as uncomfortable as she remembered, regardless of being the right size. Okay Tonya, try to remember how to walk in them _without_ being a klutz… lean back slightly… heel to toe… shorter steps… arch feet just a little… move hips more for balance.

"Ladies and Gentlemen." She said to herself, rocking her hips to the side and winking into the mirror. "I give you the one and only, _Ms. Vera Keyes_."

It took a couple laps of walking around the dressing room before it all came back to her as far as walking in heels, and now it was time to see just how identical she and Vera were… if the Courier was right, and this whole place had been built for the starlet, then not only would security not shoot at her, but they might even like her a bit more than the Ghoul. Either way, it would give her a fair fight, and this time Dean was going down.

Remembering that their voices were different, Tonya decided to actually take the Ghoul's advice about keeping her mouth shut, trying to walk as gracefully as possible back to the door back into the theater… and then taking a deep breath before pulling it open. Dean spotted her first, although freezing in place when he saw her new look, but the holograms were not so taken in, turning yellow as they approached… but then turning blue again.

"What are you doing?!" The Ghoul yelled, pointing at her with his pistol. "That's not Vera Keyes, its Tonya Greene, now shoot her! God damn it, I said shoot…

Suddenly the holograms turned yellow again, but this time they were not looking at the Courier, in fact all three of them were facing toward Dean, probably because he was pointing a gun at another _guest_ of the Sierra Madre. Again the Ghoul tried to explain to them that Tonya was an impostor, to which the Courier responded by waving to them and smiling innocently… and then the holograms turned red.

"Oh, shit!" Dean yelled, running for cover as the holograms started shooting at him.


	21. Chapter 21 Backstage Battle

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty One: Backstage Battle**

With nowhere to go as the three holograms started shooting at him, Dean Domino ran toward the back of the stage, dropping down into a kind of baseball slide as he took cover underneath the metal stairs that were partially hidden by the curtain. The whole thing shook each time one of the energy blasts struck the metal, and the Ghoul had to shield his face to avoid the resulting sparks. However, instead of cowering or begging for mercy as Tonya hoped, he aimed his pistol and started shooting.

This was a move of pure desperation, the Courier thought as he pulled the trigger two more times, since the holograms were immune to such attacks… but then she realized that Dean wasn't aiming at _them_ , but at a small device on the far wall that glowed the same blue color. His third bullet struck home; the small device shattering in a small explosion, and causing one of the three holograms to vanish almost instantly.

Energy blasts were still coming from the other two, but this gave the Ghoul the opening he needed to scramble out from under the chairs, and then dive over the edge of the stage so that it would protect him as he crawled along the floor. Nothing moved for several seconds after that, making Tonya gasp when the holograms turned yellow, so she grabbed an empty water glass from the nearest table, and tossed it over where Dean was hiding.

"Ow, damn it!" The Ghoul yelled when the glass shattered over his head, forcing him to stumble into view. "You dirty bitch, I'll get you for…

His words became a scream when one of the holograms fired a shot at him after turning red, hitting Dean in the arm and making him drop the pistol. The force of the blast knocked him off his feet, and his arm was sluggish as if it had just been electrocuted when he got up, but the Ghoul was still able to run through the same door that Tonya had gone through earlier, thanks to a table blocking one of the hologram's shots.

Instead of following him, the holograms turned back to yellow after a little bit, and blue a bit later to resume their regular patrols, making the Courier feel silly for acting so rushed while in Vera's dressing room. But she wasn't going to let Dean get away after what he had done to Dog and Christine, so Tonya picked up the fallen pistol, and followed him through the door into the straight corridor.

Silence was the only noise that greeted her, and the hallway was long, meaning that he had to be hiding somewhere nearby, since only the first couple doors were open, and she hadn't heard any of the others close as she came in… but which door? Vera's dressing room was the closest, so the Courier decided to start searching there; creeping up to the doorway and very slowly stepping into the room, only to hear a noise as the door came flying at her.

Tonya was right in the middle of the doorway, causing the door to pin her against the frame when it struck her, then hitting her a second time as if something was slamming into it from the other side. The first hit knocked the wind out of her, and the second hit her in the head when she tried to move, making her drop the pistol just before she felt something loop itself around her neck.

"So, you want to be _Vera Keyes_ , do you princess?" Dean asked, yanking her into the room while tightening his grip on the rope in his hands. "Then I'll choke _you_ just like I used to choke _her_ when we would…

The rope had been put around her neck and tightened before she could take a breath, slowly strangling the Courier while the Ghoul dragged her across the room, but then she put a stop to his speech by jamming her elbow into his ribs as hard as she could. Stomping backwards with her high heels, Dean cried out when she felt one of them cut into his ankle, and then Tonya grabbed his arm while bending forward, hip-slinging him forward so that he landed on his back.

Momentarily more concerned with getting the rope off her neck than dealing with him, she gasped when he scrambled for the pistol, picking up an old telephone receiver, and tossing it at his hand just as he was getting up. _Ding!_ The phone's bell rang once when it hit him right on target, making the Ghoul yell in agony when he lost the pistol yet again, followed by Tonya suddenly ramming into him with her shoulder.

Dean was already off balance, so the Courier was able to tackle him down onto the couch; punching the Ghoul in the face before scrambling to get on top of him so that she was pinning down his arms with her knees. Then she looped the rope around his neck and pulled it tight so that now it was Dean who was coughing and squirming around… making Tonya feel a rush of anger that motivated her to pull the rope even tighter until his mouth was gaping open for air.

"I am so _sick_ of your _shit_ , Dean!" The Courier yelled, intent on killing him this time. "The collars were _gone_ , you fucking asshole, we could've _escaped_! All of us, _together_ , we could have _gotten out_! Why, Dean?! Why did you kill them?!"

"The… Madre!" He gagged while trying to squirm out from underneath her. "It's… _mine_!"

Suddenly something pierced her leg… something sharp… making Tonya gasp when she realized that Dean hadn't been squirming to get out from under her, but rather reaching for something on the floor. Oh God, she thought, I've been stabbed… but then she looked down at her leg and saw that it wasn't a knife that was sticking into her… but five now empty syringes that were labeled Med-X. It had been a large box hidden under the sofa that the Ghoul had been reaching for, a box that was filled to the top with more syringes… and now her body was starting to feel numb.

The Courier tried to keep choking him, but in less than a minute the numbness had made it so that she could barely use her hands; she was now sweating profusely, having to make an effort to take in each heavy, labored breath, and Tonya's vision blurred for a few seconds before refocusing… just in time for Dean to grab an ashtray and slam it into the side of her head. The good news was that she barely felt it thanks to the Med-X, but that didn't stop her from ungracefully tumbling over onto the floor face-first.

"That's from Vera's private supply, my dear." The Ghoul said, clearing his throat after taking off the rope. "I figure since you want to _be_ Vera so much, you're going to have to learn to _love_ Med-X just as much as _she_ did… little _junkie_ couldn't get enough, so…

 _Bang!_ What Dean hadn't realized was that the Courier had fallen right into the pistol, so when he reached down to roll Tonya over, he received the surprise of his life when she pulled the trigger. By that time her vision was so blurred that seeing details was impossible, although she must have hit him, judging by the way he fell backwards after the shot went off, but then the pistol fell out of her hands as the numbness got worse.

She felt drunk to the point of passing out, and her heart was slowing down just like Christine had warned her, but the Courier knew that she had to get out of there. If she could make it back to the theater, then holographic security would keep her safe until the Med-X wore off, but this was harder to do than she realized, since she stumbled right out the dressing room door and into the wall while attempting to get to her feet.

Sliding down the wall and onto the floor as her vision became blurred yet again, her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, and now Tonya's legs were barely working at all. Things weren't much better with her arms, but they still worked a little, so the Courier dragged herself back down the hallway until she could reach the door that would lead to safety… only to find it somehow moving out of her reach.

The door got further and further away from her hand, and by the time Tonya realized that it was because Dean was dragging her by the ankles, he had already pulled her back into the dressing room. She tried to grab the doorframe and furniture to stop herself, but her numb fingers couldn't close around anything, allowing the Ghoul to pull her all the way back to the sofa, where he rolled her onto her back and pinned down her arms in the same way that she had done to him.

"If I didn't _need_ you to get into Sinclair's vault, you would be _dead_ , sweetheart." He explained, taking another syringe out of the box. "Killing the mutant and the mute was just _business_ ; had to eliminate the competition, but _you_ … I'm going to get you so _addicted_ to this crap that you'd sell your _children_ for a fix… and then it'll be like having Vera all over again."

She tried to get away, or protest, or at least scream, but nothing worked to stop Dean from injecting the syringe into her neck while he explained that he had figured out what had gone wrong with Christine. The Med-X overdose that he was giving her along with the _two_ following syringes, made the Courier almost incoherent as the Ghoul rambled something about needing a preserved Auto-Doc instead of what was in the Clinic, and that he should have waited for something.

"Dean… can't… breathe." Tonya whispered through labored breaths. "Stop… stop."

"Oh, don't worry, my sweet." The Ghoul replied, closing the box and then stroking her hair. "I'm not going to _kill_ you, just… knock you down a few pegs so that you'll be a sweet, obedient girl, just like I had to do with _Vera_. After all, my darling, I made you a _promise_ about what would happen the next time you raised a hand to me… and Dean Domino _always_ keeps his word, you little _brat_."

The last half of his sentence echoed as another wave of the Med-X effects kicked in, making her head pulse while her eyes swam around in her head, and then Tonya went limp… hardly able to do anything but force down labored breaths while trying to stay conscious, because with all of the chems that Dean had pumped into her… who knew if she would even wake up again?


	22. Chapter 22 The Executive Suites

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty Two: The Executive Suites**

" _How lucky can one guy be_?" Dean sang surprisingly well as the elevator went up. " _I kissed her and she kissed me… like the fella once said, ain't that a kick in the head_?"

A good portion of the Med-X was wearing off now, but Dean had managed to keep giving Tonya just enough to keep her from being able to get away or attack him… as if he had plenty of experience with drugging women. The only nice part about being so drugged up was that the Courier had been only dimly aware of what was happening after the Ghoul had finally stopped sticking syringes into her neck, but it also meant that she had to spend the next few hours completely unable to defend herself.

Eventually Dean had his fill of _punishing_ her, and actually left the dressing room just as the Med-X was wearing off, giving Tonya hope of getting away for a moment… before crushing it when he returned with a roll of duct tape that he must have found in a janitor's closet somewhere. The Ghoul used the tape to bind her ankles together, as well as pin her arms to her sides by wrapping the tape around her waist several times, finishing it off by putting a piece of tape on her mouth as well.

Coldly stating that it was _time to get back to business_ , Dean picked Tonya up and slung her over his shoulder, only to almost fall over when she started to struggle. The Courier didn't know what other plans her former teammate had for her, but after what she had been forced to go through for the last couple hours, she didn't want to even find out what else he had in store. So she kicked and squirmed like a caterpillar, at least until Dean lost patience, and roughly dropped her down so that her side landed right onto an old mop bucket.

"I'm sorry, did that _hurt_ , my dear?" He asked as Tonya screamed into the tape after falling to the floor. "I've been waiting since before your _grandmother_ was born to get into Sinclair's vault, but I suppose I can wait another hour if you want some _more_ of what I used to do to the _real_ Vera?"

No, the Courier absolutely did _not_ want to have to add any more painful memories to the collection that now included both Aurelius of Phoenix _and_ Dean Domino, so she stopped struggling the next time he put her over his shoulder, and this time the security holograms ignored them when they went back through the theater. The Ghoul made a snide remark about this not being the first time he had to carry _Vera Keyes_ back to the hotel after a performance, but there were two other things that needed to be done before the vault could be open.

The first thing was a quick trip back downstairs, where thankfully the restaurant's doors had managed to hold back the cloud poisoned water from the sprinklers until it drained, and into the last door with the word _CASINO_ painted over the top. Once inside the incredibly dark room, Dean dropped Tonya onto what she soon realized was a poker table, and was soon out of sight as he continued on into the darkness. The Courier tried to get her wrists free, but the Ghoul had wrapped the tape around them so many times that it was impossible… and then she gasped when another blue hologram appeared right next to her.

Flickering and blue like the others, this one wore a suit instead of security armor, and once Tonya realized that all the lights in the room had come on, along with identical holograms now standing at the dealer's station of all the other tables, it became obvious that main power had been restored somehow. This place really was a casino, with tables for games of all kinds, rows of slot machines, and even another hologram standing inside the cashier's office… nearby where Dean was spotted coming back.

"I know you're eager to keep going, princess." The Ghoul said, caressing her leg before grabbing her hair roughly to pull her into a sitting position on the edge of the table. "But the elevator won't run without main power, now will it?"

Grumbling something about how he wished that she and the others had saved him some time by turning on the power _before_ going into the restaurant, Dean carried the Courier back out of the casino and to the elevator door to the Sierra Madre Suites, where the button panel was now lit up. Pushing the button made the doors open after a couple seconds, and once inside, the Ghoul pushed the button for the top floor.

" _Tell me quick, oh ain't that a kick_?" He finished the song just as the elevator stopped again. " _Tell me quick, ain't love a kick in the head_? Welcome to the Sierra Madre Executive Suits, Tonya… before the bombs fell, a shabby little _tramp_ like you wouldn't even have gotten into the resort."

Unlike the rest of the casino, which had been almost perfectly preserved for the past two centuries, the _Executive Suites_ as Dean called them, were in far poorer condition. A lot of the lights were flickering or simply broken, and there were familiar looking scorch marks on many of the walls, many of which were found in close proximity to the skeletons… lots of skeletons like the ones the Courier had seen in that bathtub in the resort. This must have been where the massacre had taken place when security had malfunctioned… it was just too bad that the Ghoul hadn't been there when it happened.

"So tell me about this _other_ Ghoul that got his hands on you, sweetheart." He said, reaching back and painfully ripping the tape from Tonya's mouth. "Some nobody from the same _slums_ as you, I imagine… or maybe a _paying customer_? You look like the type to charge by the _hour_."

"His _name_ was Harland, and he was my _boyfriend_ in New Reno." The Courier hissed, feeling the sting in her lips as he carried her down the carpeted hallway. "Our lives took different paths, but he treated me good, and was more of a _man_ than you'll _ever_ be… he was _bigger_ than you, too, Dean. In fact… you're the _smallest_ out of _every_ man I've _ever_ been with. No wonder Vera chose Sinclair over you."

Stepping to the side so that her head smacked into one of the decorative pillars as they went past, the Ghoul laughed when she cried out, commenting that Tonya should _enjoy being able to use her smart mouth while she could_ … and then smacking her into the next pillar… and the next. There were certainly a lot of hallways on the top floor of the Sierra Madre, and the Courier gasped when a shimmering blue hologram, this time looking like Vera, walked out one of the room doors.

"Nice to be a _guest_ , isn't it, _Vera_?" Dean chuckled as the hologram ignored them completely. "The rest of these _bozo's_ were nothing special, but you and me, we had _top billing_ in this place once upon a time. In fact, I'm taking you to your personal suite right now."

Rounding one more corner, this hallway finally came to an end at a set of double doors, and a dark red light filled the Courier's vision when he pulled them open. The light came from the sun as it tried to pass through the red cloud that was right outside the windows, and now the two of them were inside of a luxurious two-room suite that was in better condition than the rest of the top floor had been. Aside from the age of everything, it was like nothing had been touched at all in the first room… or in the bedroom, aside from the presence of the occupant.

The only signs that someone had been living in this place were the huge, scrawled words _LET GO_ , appearing to have been written above the bed in what looked like lipstick, and the second was the skeleton sitting in the chair in the corner. It wore a dress and heels similar to the ones that Tonya was wearing, and a dozen Med-X syringes were scattered at her feet as if this person had overdosed on purpose… oh God, was this Vera Keyes?

"So, her addiction did her in after all." Dean commented, seeming unmoved by the remains of his former love. "That's all right; in this case when I've lost one Vera Keyes, I'll just make a new one."

Moving further into the room, the Ghoul suddenly tossed Tonya down, not on the floor or the bed this time, but on a really hard, metal table that was mounted to… an early model Auto Doc? As soon as the Courier was on the table, Dean flipped a switch, causing the multiple armed machine to come to life, where it immediately used some of its arms to restrain her. By the times that the arms, the restraints on the table itself, and also the duct tape still on her were all in place, Tonya was completely immobilized with her head tilted as uncomfortably far back as it would go without breaking.

"What are you doing?" She asked, trying to hide the growing fear as he opened a panel on the machine. "Let me up."

"Oh, I _will_ , buttercup." Dean replied, starting to work on the machine. "Just as soon as I put the finishing touches on my new Vera. The way I see it, Christine's Auto-Doc was degraded from the cloud, but this one… this one is in _perfect_ condition."

Remembering the long scar along Christine's neck, and seeing the sharpness of some of the Auto-Doc's tools, the Courier was no longer able to keep herself from panicking. She pulled at the restraints, squirming and thrashing her body around, but only succeeded in making the metal table shake a little before becoming too worn out to keep going. So what was he doing? Making her a mute like the scarred woman had become after surgery?

"Dean, _please_ don't do this, _please_!" The Courier begged while tears started to run down her cheeks. "Don't take my voice away! _Please_ , Dean, don't!"

"Your _voice_ is high and annoying, gorgeous." The Ghoul replied, continuing to work on the panel. "All right, that takes care of the sequence… just request a copy from the Clinic's machine… and since you wanted to insult my manhood, we'll just _disable_ the Med-X dispenser. I'd say you've had too much already, and besides… I want you to feel every _second_ of this."

Once preparations were done, Dean closed the panel and hit another button, causing the attachments on the machine's arms to start running through a short test sequence… and then Tonya shrieked when the blades started toward her throat.


	23. Chapter 23 Voice of the Past

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty Three: Voice of the Past**

Tonya's scream was cut off seconds after the strange _surgery_ began, but there were really no words to describe the pain and torture that she was going through as the blades and other tools ripped into her throat. Just as Christine had been forced to be, the Courier was silent as if someone had simply turned off the volume on her vocal cords, or in this case, simply cut them out. She was crying and trying to scream, but couldn't make a sound, while the restraints kept her from even thinking about making an escape attempt.

She had no way of knowing how long the machine worked on her, but the agony made it feel like weeks had passed by the time that the last movement with one of the tools was performed, and the Auto-Doc powered down after returning to its standby position. As for Tonya, the restraints released, allowing her to finally tilt her head back down, but the duct tape around her ankles and arms made it so that she couldn't do much more than roll over onto her side while coughing and continuing to cry.

"Oh, quit being so dramatic." Dean said heartlessly, lighting up another cigarette, this time from a pack near Vera's skeleton. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that beauty requires suffering?"

"Fuck you!" The Courier yelled between coughs. "You twisted son of…

Wait, something was wrong… wrong enough to stop her in mid-insult… because the voice that she heard coming out of her mouth was no longer her own. This new voice that Tonya was speaking with was a bit lower, far more sultry, and… well, she didn't know if _sexier_ was the right word, but it was the only one that came to mind. The Ghoul noticed the change as well; the cigarette falling from his lips as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and a smile forming on his lips after the Courier was able to ask what he had done to her.

"It worked… it _really_ worked." He said to himself, putting the fallen cigarette out with his shoe before it started to burn the carpet. "I used Vera's data from the Clinic, and programmed the Auto-Doc to _heal_ you back to original settings, and it _worked_ , you _beautiful_ little floozy… goodbye annoying screech of Tonya Greene… hello angelic song of Vera Keyes."

Tonya wasn't sure if she understood what he was saying as she struggled to get up to a sitting position on the table, but it sounded like he had used the Auto-Doc to replace her voice with Vera's. Had that been what he tried to do with Christine as well? Before the Auto-Doc at the Clinic broke down? That poor woman had gotten her vocal cords ripped out, but for what? What was the point of all this?

"Okay, _Vera_ , here's the deal." Dean continued, taking out his pistol and pointing it at her. "I'm going to take the tape off your ankles so that you can walk, and then you are going to come with me over to the other room like a good girl."

He did just that, keeping the weapon aimed at her while taking out the knife he had stolen from her back at the Residential District, and cutting her ankles free. Didn't do much about her arms, though, giving the Courier no choice but to go in the direction that he pushed her, back into the other room, and then toward… the closet? When Tonya stopped walking because she was confused, the Ghoul grabbed her by the hair, pressing the barrel of the pistol into the back of her neck hard enough for it to hurt, and continuing to move her forward.

"Dean, I don't even understand why you're doing this." She said, still getting used to having Vera's voice. "The world isn't the same as it was before the bombs, there isn't going to be anything inside the vault of this place that will do… really anything for you. Pre-war money isn't worth _spit_ compared to Nuka Cola caps, and… what else could there be?"

"This isn't about _money_ , you simple-minded harlot." Dean answered, pulling open the closet door. "Sinclair took Vera away from me, or so he thought, and then he built this whole _stupid_ place for her, just to prove that he was better than me. Well, I'm going to take his precious casino _and_ his money so that we can settle who is better once and for all… and look at that, I even get to keep Vera Keyes."

Pushing her into the incredibly long walk-in closet, Tonya was amazed by how many rows of clothes were hanging up, especially when there were more of them even after turning a corner at the back. She still tried to reason with the Ghoul, reminding him that even though they looked and sounded the same, she wasn't _really_ Vera Keyes, and he responded to this by pulling back on her hair hard enough to make her cry out while tilting her head back far enough to look at him.

"You can forget all about being _Tonya Greene_ ; no starlet keeps their _old_ name anyway." Dean said harshly before pulling her back further. "From now on you _are_ Vera Keyes, or else you'll _never_ get another hit of Med-X as long as you live… don't worry, you'll care about that once the withdrawals kick in."

Moving again, the rows of clothing ended, leaving the two of them standing in front of a heavily secured elevator door, but there was no call button, just a sort of intercom box with a microphone. She groaned when he moved her by the hair, up to the microphone, with instructions for the Courier to say the phrase: ' _Begin again, but know when to let go'_ … however, Tonya was smart enough to realize that he absolutely _needed_ her for this, since the intercom must've been keyed to Vera's voice, which explained the surgery… so if he wanted to use the elevator, he would have to cut her free, toss away the pistol, and let her go.

"I have a counter-offer for you, my love." Dean replied, moving the pistol down so that the barrel was pressed into her right buttock. "You can either sing like a pretty little bird, or I'm going to _shoot_ you in the _ass_ … not _nearly_ as fun as the last time I _penetrated_ you."

"All right, fine, I'll do it." The Courier replied, leaning up toward the microphone. "Begin again… but know when to let go."

The response was immediate; the elevator coming to life while the motor could be heard powering up from somewhere below, and Tonya thought that the doors would open right away, but nothing happened. Apparently Sinclair had told Vera that the vault was hidden deep underneath the Sierra Madre, and set up to respond to her voice in order to give her somewhere safe to hide when the war reached nuclear levels. Of course, no one realized how quickly those levels would have been reached, so Dean's whole plan to rob the casino back then fell apart because of the damn bombs.

"Not this time, though, Vera." The Ghoul said as the elevator was heard coming to a stop. "Now, after _two hundred years_ of waiting and planning, the casino, the vault's hidden treasures, _and_ the girl are all going to be _mine_. So wherever Sinclair's rotting corpse is, he can suck it, while this elevator brings me everything I deserve."

With a quiet _ding_ , the elevator door slid open, but it wasn't empty… there was a dark figure standing inside… a figure with a strange looking rifle aimed at them. Dean let go of Tonya in order to aim his pistol at the figure, but was only halfway there when the trigger was pulled. The Courier threw herself to the floor just in time to avoid a blast of flickering blue energy that struck the Ghoul in the chest, making him drop the pistol as he was thrown backwards.

Dean landed on his back, screaming as the crackling energy spread across his whole body until he looked like one of the blue holograms… and then he froze in place, falling silent as his body disintegrated into a large pile of ash. Tonya's mouth hung open, having never seen an energy weapon that efficient or deadly, and she was frightened that she was next… until the figure picked up the fallen knife and swiftly cut the tape that bound her arms.

"I take it things didn't go quite as planned with your team." A familiar voice said as the figure put the knife away. "Should've known the collars would get purged… get on your feet, girl, we're not finished yet."

Slowly getting off her stomach and pulling herself to her feet, the Courier was stunned to see the face of Elijah, the old man who she had only ever seen before at the fountain's hologram. But how had he gotten into the casino without someone having Vera's voice? The old man stepped over to Dean's ashes, moving them with his foot to make sure that there was nothing left, and then he claimed the fallen pistol as well, before walking back over to her.

"It was hard to see on the cameras, but you really _do_ look like her." Elijah said with a slight laugh. "Well, if you're whole team's dead, that just means they can't turn on you, and now there's nothing to stop me from getting into the vault."

"And I'm _really_ happy for you." Tonya replied, taking a quick look back toward the exit. "So, you can have the vault, and I'm just gonna leave, so… good bye."

She turned around to go, but was stopped by the incredibly strong grip of the old man's hand on her shoulder as it pulled her back over to the elevator. Motioning with his rifle toward the open car, the Courier sighed deeply before stepping inside, and Elijah followed. Then the door closed, and the elevator started down… and down… and down until she had lost track of how many floors had been passed.

"Using an Auto-Doc to change a girl's voice." The old man laughed. "Clever… I did it by playing a hacked audio file over the suites' loudspeakers, but I didn't know there was another lock on the vault itself… that's where _you_ come in, girl. But don't get any ideas about even _entering_ the vault, you hear?"

"I don't _want_ the vault, Elijah." She replied with frustration in her voice. "This place is cursed… it brings nothing but death and sadness, and… I want to go home… back to New Reno."

Yes, going home for a while sounded great, and as long as she was stuck with Vera's voice, maybe she could try being a singer for a while at one of the casinos there… couldn't even carry a tune before, but now who knew? As long as she could survive whatever was waiting down in the lower levels for her… and Tonya had dealt with enough shady people in her life to know that Elijah was not to be trusted.


	24. Chapter 24 The Vault

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty Four: The Vault**

For the longest time the elevator went down, with hardly any speaking going on between Tonya and Elijah, giving her time to think about what she was going to do once they arrived down at their destination. The old man had all the weapons, and if he had lasted for years in this place, getting this far _all by himself_ , then he was probably a pretty tough customer. There was also a tattoo of a sword and some gears with wings visible on his arm, and the Courier recognized it as being from the _Brotherhood of Steel_ … but hadn't the NCR wiped them all out?

"You did a good job helping me, so I'm gonna let you live." Elijah said, interrupting her thoughts. "But just because you're the only one that can open the vault, doesn't mean you get a claim on what's inside, you hear me, girl?"

He went on to explain that everything in the Sierra Madre was rightfully his after all the years and hard work he'd put into it… actually sounding a lot like Dean Domino… and that if the Courier even looked _inside_ , he would bash her teeth out the back of her head with his rifle stock. Apparently his plan was for the casino to become some kind of fortress, but he was really vague and sounding a little out of his mind when he started talking about a way to harness the red cloud, but then he stopped talking when the elevator came to a stop.

Tonya wasn't sure what she was expecting to find in this hidden sub level of the Sierra Madre, but it wasn't a single vast chamber made of metal and concrete. The entire floor was a single, huge platform made of grated steel, which made it difficult for her to walk in her heels across it. Beneath the floor, though, and just trying to peek up over the sides where there was about eight feet of nothingness between the platform's edge and the wall, was the big concentration of the red smoke.

Besides that, there were several dozen supply lockers about waist high, making a kind of wall around the edge of the platform, and many of them were left open with empty cans of food and water scattered nearby. There was also a complicated kind of monitoring station, where more than a hundred camera screen showed images of the resort, as well as each room inside the casino, meaning that from there the old man had been able to see and hear everything that had happened since their arrival.

"You were watching the whole time? Not just at the fountain?" She asked, seeing the screen that displayed Vera's dressing room. "So you saw… everything?"

"Did I see _you_ , you mean?" Elijah replied with a scoff. "Kind of hard to miss a _Med-X junkie_ getting her _brains_ screwed out by a _Ghoul_ on a dressing room floor, wouldn't you think? The withdrawals are going to be _fun_ by the way, good luck with that… no walk over to that door."

Across from the monitoring station, placed so that it was coming out of the far wall and extending to the edge of the platform, was a rounded metal room that sported two large windows of a sturdy looking substance, as well as what was probably the sturdiest and heaviest door that Tonya had ever seen. There was no handle or lever, just like with the elevator, but there _was_ another one of those intercom boxes, making it pretty obvious what she was supposed to do.

"What was that?" The old man asked, grabbing her arm as the elevator closed and started back up. "I thought everyone on your team was dead."

"Yeah… so did I." Tonya replied, looking up at the elevator shaft. "Doesn't the elevator only work with my… I mean, _Vera's_ voice?"

Elijah was silent, remaining still for the whole time that the elevator car went back up to Vera's suite, and then he took cover behind the security station as soon as it started back down again, prompting the Courier to do the same, since she was unarmed. But who was it coming down the shaft now, since Dog, Christine, and Dean Domino were all dead? After all, there wasn't anyone else in the casino, except…

" _I let him in through the maintenance entrance_." She remembered Dean saying as a knot formed in her stomach. " _Poor man was always punctual, even before the red cloud transformed him_."

No, that was impossible, Tonya thought as she tried to push the possibility out of her mind. But besides the holograms, there had only been a _single_ other being that she had seen in the casino, and if anyone would have been able to get down into the vault without Vera's voice… it would have been the resort's maintenance man. But before she could warn the old man about her suspicions, the elevator stopped, and the Courier gasped when the doors opened to reveal the green eyed figure standing within.

"Jesus Christ." The old man said quietly. "What the hell is this thing?"

She wanted to move or speak, but found herself unable to do so as a wave of uncontrollable fear seemed to spread throughout her whole body. Since her arrival at the resort, the pursuer had been stabbed, shot, beaten, blown up, thrown from a high roof, crushed, and bound with bear traps… all of which had accomplished absolutely nothing. Making that awful gurgling sound again as it stepped out of the elevator and onto the platform, the figure was reaching for its knife, since the spear must've been lost in the restaurant, when Elijah fired his weapon.

The strange rifle sent a pulse of energy toward the green eyed figure, slamming into its chest and throwing it backwards just as it had done with Dean upstairs. The blue flickering energy spread across the pursuer's body until it had turned completely blue, but when the light faded there was not a pile of ash, but a completely unharmed figure slowly getting to its feet. No longer worried about the old man's weapons being used on her, Tonya grabbed the pistol from his belt, and started shooting.

 _Bang! Bang!_ The shots echoed off the walls of the chamber, each one hitting the green eyed figure, and making it stumble into the wall while the old man reloaded, but soon she was out of ammo, and able to do nothing except watch as old man fired another shot of his own. This wasn't working… _nothing_ was working… the pursuer just took everything they could throw at it, but maybe… maybe there was something in the _vault_ that would help them. Not that Tonya _wanted_ to let Elijah into the vault, but from experience she knew that the figure would kill both of them if they didn't stick together.

Realizing that his rifle wasn't working, the old man slung it over his back, before taking out and extending a metal baton, giving the Courier the perfect chance to run for the door while he went after the figure in a melee fight. As difficult as it was to run across the grated metal in heels, it was a better idea than attacking the pursuer at close range, but Elijah was actually doing pretty well, giving the figure a good _whack_ on the hand to make it drop the knife, and then bringing up his foot to kick it in the chest.

"Begin again." She said after pushing the intercom button. "But know when to let go."

She had no way of knowing if the password for the actual vault was the same as the one for the elevator, but apparently it was, because the multiple locks all across the door began to uncouple a moment later. Eventually there was a _hiss_ as the massive door slowly swung open, allowing Tonya to rush into the room that… was a lot smaller than she would have imagined, but it made it easy for her to take a look around as soon as the lights flickered on.

The whole place was a single, open room, and like the platform, it was stocked with enough supplies to sustain someone for a long period… but there were other things as well. A gigantic pile of pre-war money, probably a few million worth, was stacked neatly on top of a table, and there was gold as well… an equally large pile of gold bars was stacked on the floor, and as much as all of this would have bene worth before the bombs fell… today none of it really did too much for her.

"Junk." She said with a disappointed tone. "Pre-war junk, just like I said… hope it was worth it, Dean."

No weapons, though, and in fact, the only other feature of the room was a small computer terminal at the far end. Maybe it could be used to activate some kind of defensive systems or security robots or something, the Courier thought as she walked over to it, but when she booted up the menu screen, it only gave her three options: _READ THIS VERA_ , followed by _I LOVE YOU VERA READ THIS FIRST_ , and finally _SINCLAIR SUMMERY OF ACCOUNTS_.

Nothing happened after she selected the first option, aside from the terminal saying that the requested tape had been removed, so she clicked on the second one, which brought up a rather lengthy message. Apparently it was from Sinclair to Vera, and from the heading on top, it had been used to replace the missing tape from the first entry, making its contents irresistible regardless of the battle going on outside between the figure and Elijah.

 _Vera, if you are reading this, then my worst fears have come to pass, and this is an apology. I have extracted the previous entry after our conversation tonight; this can't have been easy for you, but I knew about your plans to rob the casino with Dean before you told me… not that hearing it from you made it any easier. Though I know that you never loved me, I do not hold any malice toward you._

 _For what it's worth, I'm glad you told me yourself, and I understand about the tapes that Dean had in his possession about your Med-X addiction… and your need to keep your terminal illness as its cause from everyone, including him. Vera, I built this place to protect you, to give you shelter when the bombs finally fell, as we all know is coming, but when Dean inadvertently gave away his plans through conversation, my thoughts became dark._

 _I changed the casino vault from a shelter to a trap, and as I knew that Dean would want to be the first one inside, he would die down here, all by his own hand… with you by his side. I regret that now, as I could never truly let anything happen to you, my darling Vera, but I have been unable to change the protocols. I will keep trying, but I fear that my designs cannot be undone by any means._

 _If you come down here, do not access my personal accounts, as they only contain a message for Dean, as well as the trigger that will automatically lockdown the vault to the point where even your voice will not be able to open it again. I have ensured that there are enough supplies and Med-X in the vault to keep you comfortable, and the resort's emergency beacon will send out a distress call… have to remember to change it back from the grand opening invitation._

 _You will be safe here, and when the danger passes, rescue will come. I love you, Vera Keyes, yours forever, Frederick Sinclair._

So much about the resort and casino made sense after reading that entry, beginning with the strange signal that led her there in the first place… he hadn't switched it back… as well as the unfortunate reason for Vera's addiction. As soon as she closed the entry, the tape destroyed itself in a small puff of smoke, leaving only the first and third entries available, but not without her taking away the most important part of the message.

"It's a trap." She whispered to herself, carefully backing away from the terminal. "This whole vault is one big trap."


	25. Chapter 25 It's Letting Go

**It's Letting Go**

 **Chapter Twenty Five: It's Letting Go**

Outside of the vault's secured chamber, the fight between Elijah and the green eyed figure was raging on as Tonya came back out to the platform. However, unlike when she and her whole team had faced off with it, the old man was doing remarkably well. Ducking and weaving around its knife attacks with perfect skill, he struck the figure with his baton again and again, each hit driving the pursuer back across the platform.

None of these hits was doing any _actual_ damage to its body, but each hit forced the figure just a little closer to the edge, where nothing but a pit full of the red cloud awaited it. The figure grabbed onto his throat with both hands, but the old man put the baton diagonally between its arms, and twisted hard enough to break himself free. _Whack! Whack!_ A hit to the arm, a hit to the leg, there was just no stopping Elijah as he drove the figure all the way to the very edge, before spinning around and slamming his heel right into its chest.

With a final gurgling sound, the green eyed figure was knocked over the edge, quickly vanishing into the red smoke, and allowing the old man to breathe heavily for a minute or two in order to catch his breath. As far as the Courier was concerned, no one deserved to be trapped forever inside of Sinclair's pre-war trap, so she was walking over to tell Elijah about what she had discovered… only to have his eyes narrow when they saw the open vault door.

"Elijah, we need to get out of here." She began as he approached. "This place isn't…

Quickly unslinging his rifle, Tonya's words became an outcry of pain when he slammed the stock into her stomach hard enough to make her cough as she fell to her hands and knees. She hadn't even finished reacting to the first hit, when his foot came up into her stomach, lifting her whole body an inch off the platform to where she crashed onto her side… before throwing up from the hit.

"Just couldn't resist the vault, could you?" He asked, striking her in the side of the head with the stock when she tried to sit up. "Well, I already told you that the Sierra Madre is _mine_ , you little bitch. _Mine_!"

Making one more attempt to get up, the Courier was stopped when the old man's foot connected with her cheek hard enough to make her vision go white for a second, and when it cleared she was on her back… while Elijah was walking through the door into the vault's secured chamber. Tonya had never been hit by anyone as hard as that before, and she was still trying to get up to her hands and knees, when the vault door suddenly slammed shut. The locks all clicked into place, and a set of heavy shutters came down over the windows.

"You can't be serious!" The old man could be heard yelling from inside. " _Fortunato_ … what? _No_! No, this won't happen! This _can't_ happen!"

A slight flash of light could be seen from between the shutters, probably Elijah firing his rifle at the door, but there was no effect. Again and again the flash of light, but from what Sinclair's message said to Vera, there was no way out… someone had been trapped in there by his own greed after all… it just hadn't been Dean Domino. So this was the result of both of their scheming, though… all those lives lost trying to break in… all those years wasted for absolutely nothing.

"Tonya!" The old man screamed, pounding on the window from inside. "Tonya, open the door! Tonya!"

"You brought this on yourself, Elijah!" She called back, struggling to get to her feet. "You and Dean… this is what you killed all those people for, isn't it?! This is why Dog and Christine are dead, you son of a bitch! Well, enjoy the Sierra Madre in _all_ its glory… it's all yours!"

The old man continued to scream as she walked away, putting in the password at the elevator, and then sighing with relief when she could no longer hear him once the doors closed. A moment later the elevator started going back up to the suites, but as the Courier tried to catch her breath, a dull, stabbing pain began to creep up across the front of her head, and her hand was shaking a little when she tried to touch her forehead. Dizziness now, was she tired? Was she dehydrated? Good thing there were supplies left upstairs.

When the elevator finally stopped, Tonya felt a rush of relief when the doors opened, but more dizziness washed over her, and now everything was getting brighter, regardless of the dim lighting both from the fixtures and from the sun outside. There was water and food stocked inside the suite, and she hadn't been able to eat earlier at the restaurant, so she took some water and a thing of Cram, quickly swallowing down both… but it wasn't helping.

"A nap." She groaned, looking at the large bed, while trying to ignore Vera's skeleton sitting in the chair nearby. "Yeah… need some sleep."

The bed was big and comfortable, and the Courier must have fallen asleep, because the sky was dark outside the windows, while it only felt like she had blinked. The pain stabbing through her head was even worse now, and Tonya was getting the shakes… feeling cold. Cold, so cold… wrapping herself up in the blanket didn't help, and she was starting to get sick to her stomach again… but then she saw an intact syringe of Med-X on the floor.

Without even realizing what she was doing, the Courier picked up the syringe and stabbed it into her leg, allowing her to gasp with relief as the pain started to lessen. The numbness was spreading through her body, while at the same time the dizziness, shakes, and nausea retreated, as did the feeling of being cold… leaving her to just sit there for a while… before burying her face in her hands as she started to cry.

She had become addicted to Med-X just like Vera, that was the only explanation… she was a junkie just like Dean said she would be… and she missed Christine. This place really _was_ cursed, Tonya thought, wiping her eyes on her arm… the Sierra Madre didn't bring anything but death and suffering, and… she needed to get out of there. As soon as the numbness started to wear off, she got to her feet, leaving the room, and heading back down the corridor toward the elevator that would take her back down to the lobby… and from there to the casino's exit.

Without really knowing where she was, Tonya needed to stop for supplies, mostly from the theater so that she could have more suitable traveling clothes, food, water… and then she saw Vera's Med-X box on the floor underneath the sofa in her dressing room. The Courier didn't want to take them, she wanted to be away from that awful chem for good, but if the withdrawals came on while she was out in the wastes… there was no choice but to take the whole box with her when she left the theater.

Dog and Dean had both been incinerated, by the explosion and Elijah's strange rifle respectively, but the scarred woman was still there on the floor, right where Dean had left her. There was no way that she could take the body with her when she left, so Tonya carried her friend back down to the restaurant, where a stream of fire was still coming out of an exposed gas pipe, now that the water and red cloud had drained away. It wasn't much of a cremation; wrapping her in a table cloth and placing her in the path of the flames… but it felt better than just leaving her to rot on the floor.

"I'm sorry this had to happen to you, Christine." The Courier said, wiping more tears as the body burned. "I would have liked to be holding your hand when we left this place."

The main doors were no longer locked since the Gala event was over, and without a bomb collar around her neck, there was nothing to stop Tonya from walking back down the cobblestone streets, past the fountain where the hologram of Vera Keyes stood silently, and through the exit gate on the far side. There was a long walk ahead of her, at least until being able to figure out how to get back to NCR territory, but as the cobblestone streets turned into the rock and clay of the Mojave, the Courier took one last look at the Sierra Madre… before leaving it behind forever.

 _You've heard stories of the Sierra Madre Casino, we all have… the legend, the curses. Some foolishness about it lying in the middle of a city of the dead… a city of ghosts, buried beneath a blood red cloud. A bright, shining monument, luring treasure hunters to their doom… an illusion that you can begin again… change your fortunes. Finding it, though, that's not the hard part…_

 _It's letting go…_


End file.
